Elegant Stinkhorn
Mushroom madness continues. It may stink but no one can say it’s not elegant.
Yesterday’s wanderings brought me to my first encounter with an Elegant Stinkhorn.
Elegant Stinkhorn – Mutinus elegans
Actually it was a pair, both had just passed their prime and were laying on the ground. All their essential features remained except for being erect.
The mushroom’s fetid odor attracts insects like flies that feed on the foul smelling slimy green spore mass. I wonder why my National Audubon field guide is mum about the edibility of this mushroom since it is not poisonous. Other sources state the immature bulb / base is edible although it’s rather tasteless. Another common name for this mushroom is ‘Devil’s Dipstick’. I don’t even want to ask what he’s checking the level of or where he’s sticking it. |
finger licking good |
The genus name Mutinus refers to a Roman phallic deity so it’s understandable how a very similar looking member of the family got it’s name, The Dog Stinkhorn – Mutinus caninus. Not that I pay attention to such things but it does look like a dog’s thing-a-ma-jig even without a hole at the tip.
…and now for something completely different.
I tweaked my template in order to display wider images used as desktop backgrounds. Now I can use Picasa’s link generator without having to make multiple copies of the same image in different sizes for use on the blog.
The image is linked to the full sized image on my Picasa Wallpaper Album. From there you can browse the rest of images
