The Stinkhorn Post!

I had to gear up for this post for many, many days (just ask my friends--I wouldn't stop talking about stinkhorns). I was so excited when I found these (still not sure why, exactly), and fussed over which images to post, read up what I could about them, etc. I really wanted to do right by them. I had to go to the library. (Went to library. Found nothing more.)

“Stinkhorn” is another word you hear and think it’s a big joke, like “slime mold.” Except these really are! They are nasty yet wonderful. I mean, come on!

Stinkhorns really pull out all the stops when it comes to wild forms. Just type “stinkhorn” into a search bar. The ones in this post are nothing compared to some of the really elaborate ones.

Pseudocolus fusiformis, the "stinky squid"

See the fly?

Stinkhorns show up suddenly (it can be only two or three hours between when they burst out of their “egg” and are fully formed), and they enlist flies to spread their spores, and what do flies like? Nasty, filthy, rotting things, which stink.

Bewildered people post pictures online asking for ID help (“What the heck are these things that appeared in my garden mulch overnight?!? They’re vulgar! They stink!”), a dozen or more in a patch, all flopped around in different directions. They look like a bunch of bizarre, aimless animals. It's on my list of things to find.



So, the stinkhorn’s nasty slime is what stinks (the little black smears on this one), more specifically, the spores suspended in it (if I got that right), and the flies get all excited and clamber all over it getting spore-slime all over their feet, and then they go land somewhere else and spread the spores.

And they really stink! I was puttering around in the woods when I caught a whiff of something I was sure was a dead animal. It was this little stinkhorn and a few of its little friends, about 15’ away from me. I saw it from a distance and thought it was a fallen trumpet vine flower, that’s how orange and bright it was. (Later I realized I’ve never actually seen trumpet vine growing in the woods.)

That’s the  empty "egg” it came out of. These have a characteristic tough mycelial cord called a rhizomorph.

This species has arms that arise from a single fused point in the egg. This one conveniently fell out of its egg sac so I could see that. You may not be able to make it out clearly in these images (but I bet you could if you clicked on them to see them larger) but each one has three arms that are joined at the tip, making a sort of long narrow cage. Sometimes there’s four arms. No big deal.

There’s another orange stinkhorn species with multiple arms joined at the top but the arms are all separate from each other in the egg.

Left to right: a mature Pseudocolus fusiformis in its prime; an egg I cut in half; a shriveling spent one; and three unopened eggs.

Above left: three unopened eggs next to a deteriorating older specimen.

Above right: the interior of an egg. The unpleasant-olive-colored junk between the two orange areas is the immature sporeslimegoostink, which will be inside the arms when this one matures.



The flies were enchanted. I had a little trouble convincing them to leave. So I didn’t.

People eat the eggs of some species, pickled. If anyone ever said they were delicious, I would try them, but “you should try them at least once” doesn't really sell them, for me.

Hi there!

This is a different species, either Mutinus caninus, M. elegans or M. ravenelii. Even my go-to site, mushroomexpert.com, mushes these three together. Whichever one it is, it has already lost the slimy smelly goo at the tip, which was a most unpleasant green-brown and covered maybe a quarter of the length. I cannot determine which one it is, because descriptions offer a color range like “orangish to pinkish” spikes and “whitish to pinkish or purplish” eggs. Nothing very definite. I was hoping it was Mutinus caninus so I could say its common name, “dog penis stinkhorn” a lot, but I really can’t tell what this one is. There was just this one, peeking around the underbrush at me.

I found more stinkhorns (below). Once again, the stalk had already lost its spore-loaded smelly smear on the tip. Same story as above, can’t really say for sure which one it is, so I still can’t say “dog penis stinkhorn” over and over.

I went back to this spot three times in a week trying to catch freshly-emerged spikes, but that was before I learned they could emerge in 2-3 hours and fall apart that same day, so I must have kept missing them. I was hoping I’d show up and find a whole bunch of them all up at once.

I did find some carrion beetles on them on one of my visits, but they are wary beetles and scattered before I could take their picture. Carrion beetles. They eat carcasses. Stinkhorns stink.

The whole stinkin’ family

There wasn't much odor at all here. The upright member had already lost its spore goo and was starting to deteriorate, and it looked like somebody had been eating it. I cut open one of the eggs and lots of clear, non-smelly liquid poured out. The stink isn't until the stalk has emerged, with spores ready to be dispersed by flies, which, by the way, means it depends on another organism to reproduce and doesn't that remind you of another growing thing? Flowers, perhaps?



There’s one of the eggs cut in half.

Immature stinkhorn eggs.

Also, when you think about it, how often do you find a dead animal in the woods? Nobody would pass up an opportunity for a free meal for long. They go quick. So if you're ever in the woods, and hoping to find stinkhorns, and smell something nasty, go towards it.

I don’t know what else to say. Stinkhorns! Eggs! Slime!

Mid-June yellow Amanita, ephemeral Coprinus comatus and other Earth items

Warning: a spider and swarms of fat red bugs below!

More blah blah catching up blah blah, while emotionally gearing up for the stinkhorn post! Just you wait!

Saw this handsome yellow-capped Amanita right next to the trail, a spot of lemon through some leaves. The first image is after I’d had my way with it (gently)--taken many shots, cleared away some leaves to see the base (but not enough to nail down the ID, apparently), and moved some branches so they were held out of the way around that little tree. The next person on the trail would have seen it presented like this.





I don’t know what species it is. There are several yellow Amanitas, and this one didn't have all the identifying features of any of them. Well, maybe it did, but it was so pretty I didn't check things that would have helped me ID it because it would have damaged it. Like roughing it up to see if it changed color, or digging it up to get a better look at the base. Or cutting it in half. I just couldn't.


There’s a yellow species with lighter patches on the cap, there’s a yellow one with a yellow stem, and there’s a yellow one with a bulbous base. Not this one.

I swear I’ll start paying more attention, if I really want to know what’s going on out there. I keep overlooking important identity details because I'm too caught up in the visuals. I know that sounds corny but it's true.

Mourning cloak butterfly, Nymphalis antiopa

I came upon a spot with many of these butterflies hanging around. The description says the wings have a bright yellow border, but this was absolutely gold. Shiny, metallic, 24-karat gold. I read the males sit around in sunny spots waiting for females. That seemed to be what was going on here, in a little clearing in the forest. They also overwinter in Missouri. Not the kind of thing I'd think a butterfly would do, but they do. They're much tougher than I realized.

It took major sneaking to get this close.

Here comes the other kinds of bugs, the kind some people might not like. Take your leave now if you need to.

I found a wolf spider carrying her babies on her back, like they do. First time I saw this in real life!



She wouldn't slow down, so this is the best shot I have.

Next is a non-forest phenomenon I saw in a college courtyard planted with goldenrain trees.



Swarms of red-shouldered bug nymphs. They love goldenrain trees. I think they were congregating like this because they had been displaced by recent heavy rains, and hadn't found their way back to the tree or fallen seedpods yet.

Jadera haematoloma

I know what they are because I found them before and figured it out.



Skeletonized goldenrain tree seedpod in rain. See golden flowers strewn about. There were red-shouldered bugs on the seedpods themselves but they scattered when I got this close.

One day I went somewhere and when I came home a couple hours later these mushrooms were right in front of where I park. Did I miss them when I left, or did they pop up while I was gone? They could have.

Coprinus comatus, “shaggy mane”

I was going to visit them again in the morning, but it rained hard overnight, and there was not a single trace of them the next day. Not even the disturbed soil!

The Audubon guide says “Fragile as this mushroom is, it has the remarkable ability to push up through asphalt.”

What a world, what a world!

June mushrooms of glorious shapes

Getting to the good stuff now!

I was hunkered down in some cedars taking pictures of these and a man on the trail asked me what I was doing.





I stared at him, wild-eyed, and snarled, “Don’t look at me! I’m hideous!!!"



But these Lycoperdon perlatum are not hideous. They are wonderful.
For the record, these "gem-studded puffballs" grow from the ground, in case you're confusing them with the similar Lycoperdon pyriforme, which always grow from wood.

Below, the biggest wood ear I've ever found!

And here’s a tree with the most wood ears I've ever seen. This is only half of them—there was this much more further up the tree, too.

And here are some of the most beautiful wood ears I've ever seen.





Now you know why I prefer overcast days for photos.

Below, some of that crazy ozonium of Coprinellus domesticus (C. radians is similar, but apparently does not come with ozonium). The orange fuzz is the mycelium erupting out onto the surface, instead of staying below things like it usually does (underground, under bark, etc.). I can’t find much info about it at all. What the heck does “form genus of imperfect fungi” mean? One site refers to it as “air mycelium.” The domain name www.ozonium.com is available. There is a player on Lolking named Ozonium. That is all I could find online.

The Latin name of this mushroom sticks in my mind because on mushroomexpert.com the ozonium is described as “orange shag carpeting”, which is in houses, which is domestic.

Here’s a pic on my Flickr account of the first time I encountered it. The first comment under it is funny.

Beetle galleries

Next is a gorgeous Laetiporus cincinnatus I found, visible from the trail (doesn’t anybody hike on these trails?).



There it is, and suddenly there’s my foot and you can see how big it is.




Absolutely prime and pristine.



The conversation went like this: “Oh! How beautiful! Thank you so much! What’s the occasion?” And the forest replied, “Oh, no occasion at all, we just thought you’d like this.”