Lantern Stinkhorn
After a mini-drought we've had a lot of rainy days lately, and on the forest floor I spotted something I've never seen before. It turned out to be lantern stinkhorn, a kind of fungus brought to the United States. So this is a new one for my prairie seed and fungus species set.
Lysurus mokusin, commonly known as the lantern stinkhorn, the small lizard's claw, or the ribbed lizard claw, is a saprobic species of fungus in the family Phallaceae. The fruit body consists of a reddish, cylindrical fluted stipe that is capped with several "arms". The arms can approach or even close in on each other to form a spire. The gleba—an olive-green slimy spore mass—is carried on the outer surface of the arms. The fruit body has an odor comparable to "fresh dog feces", "rotting flesh", or "sewage" when mature.
The fungus is native to Asia, and is also found in Australia, Europe and North America, where it is probably an introduced species. It is edible in its immature "egg" stage.
Source and more info: www.inaturalist.org/taxa/208065-Lysurus-mokusin
Lantern Stinkhorn
After a mini-drought we've had a lot of rainy days lately, and on the forest floor I spotted something I've never seen before. It turned out to be lantern stinkhorn, a kind of fungus brought to the United States. So this is a new one for my prairie seed and fungus species set.
Lysurus mokusin, commonly known as the lantern stinkhorn, the small lizard's claw, or the ribbed lizard claw, is a saprobic species of fungus in the family Phallaceae. The fruit body consists of a reddish, cylindrical fluted stipe that is capped with several "arms". The arms can approach or even close in on each other to form a spire. The gleba—an olive-green slimy spore mass—is carried on the outer surface of the arms. The fruit body has an odor comparable to "fresh dog feces", "rotting flesh", or "sewage" when mature.
The fungus is native to Asia, and is also found in Australia, Europe and North America, where it is probably an introduced species. It is edible in its immature "egg" stage.
Source and more info: www.inaturalist.org/taxa/208065-Lysurus-mokusin