I’m a curious sort of person.
So, on a string of late summer nights, when I heard through the open windows a low trilling coming from a thick stand of trees in my neighbor’s yard, I began yet another obsessive search for answers.
I spent some late-night hours on the Internet bird sound databases trying to identify this almost imperceptible sound, almost like moth wings fluttering in the dark. Finally, in late August, I cracked the case. It was an Eastern screech owl. I’d always assumed a screech owl, would, you know, screech, so I’d not considered anything in the owl family in my search. Sadly, once I identified the sound it was never heard again.
But, nature has a funny way of keeping me hopping. Late last week as I was digging a hole in one of my backyard gardens to plant a vine cutting, something odd caught my eye. I bent down to get a better look. That’s when the smell grabbed me by the deviated septum. With one hand pinching my nose, I used the other (gloved) hand to carefully pluck this phallic fungus from the mulch. I marched it over to the compost pile. Along the way, I felt a little like Lorena Bobbitt.
Fancy Internet picture
The beige, spongy base narrowed to a green, mottled, rotting-flesh-scented tip that dripped slime. It is one of the most revolting things I’ve encountered in a long while.
Yucky, real-life shot
After I photographed this fetid fungal specimen I went inside, calmed my stomach, washed my hands, and began Googling Michigan mushrooms.
I didn’t have to look far to find out I’d bagged a big, bad phallus impudicus, otherwise known as a stinkhorn. Turns out the white, slimy, furred thing nestled nearby was a stinkhorn egg.
What would Georgia O'Keeffe have done with these beauties?
Mycologists, or mushroom experts, have a sense of humor about these things. Other names for the stinkhorn are pricke mushrooms, and fungus virilis penis effigie. Then there’s its little red cousin, the mutinus caninus, commonly known as the dog penis mushroom. The sites I visited relished in explaining how the slimy egg’s parts, which look suspiciously female, are edible. At maturity they quickly erupt and thrust a shaft skyward with astonishing speed and force, apparently powerful enough to penetrate asphalt. They, too, are edible, but seem appealing only to carrion eaters.
How have I lived almost 47 years and not heard of any of this? Perhaps the answer rests with this final tidbit: In Victorian-era Cambridge, matrons of the manor ran about the woods collecting in baskets these shameless phallus to later be burned. All this to protect young maidens from encountering the frightening and stimulating objects while on an afternoon stroll.
So, there you have it. My yard is a field of rotting genitals.
oh. my. goodness.
Oh. My. Goodness. That was disturbing, yet intriguing.
Summer recently posted..Swollen
I love it that you both responded the same way. This post just brought out the juvenile in me.
okay, that was totally disgusting, and yet completely hilarious!
meleah rebeccah recently posted..Lunch With Margaret Andrews, and, The Pulaski Skyway
Meleah: I know, right? You’ll never be able to walk past a “dog penis” mushroom again and keep a straight face!
That’s just nasty.
Jennifer recently posted..Updates and Pinterest Challenge
I know the Stinkhorn well. Last summer I walked into my yard and saw them, growing out of the mulch around a tree. They smelled like crap, literally, and looked like skinny penises with poop covered tips. It is so wrong in so many ways. Of course I took pictures too and posted to FB last year. So gross.
Barb: I exercised great restraint by only posting on my blog. I gave FB a break.
“My yard is a field of rotting genitals.”
That is the first line of a really interesting poem.
unmitigated me recently posted..A Sunday Post
I am in shock. Right after you, in my blog reader, is Momo Fali. Here is her post for today: http://www.momofali.com/2011/09/theres-a-fungus-amongus
unmitigated me recently posted..A Sunday Post
I think if I stare at it every time I feel hungry, I’d finally be able to stick to my diet.
Ewww. No wonder Victorian matrons tried to hide them away from the maidens: to avoid screaming brides on their wedding nights.
Sweaty recently posted..Open to Interpretation: Wordless and (Not So) Wordless Wednesday
Sweaty: Ah, maybe we are on to something here. These mushrooms could be a valuable tool in the “just say no to premarital sex” campaign.
Unmitigated: I just may take you up on the challenge. Thanks for the link to Momo Fali.
Often imitated, never duplicated. 🙂
lceel recently posted..Slightly Wordy Wednesday – A Slap in the Face
Excellent!
Oh my gosh! That’s hilarious! (And, huge!) We had the little, red cousin.
I had never seen anything like it before…and hope I never do again!
http://www.momofali.com/2011/09/theres-a-fungus-amongus/
Momo Fali recently posted..There’s a Fungus Amongus
Little red cousin. I love it. Sounds like a euphamism for a medical condition.
i found your site from Sweaty’s FB group- and it seems oddly fitting that this is the first post I would click on from that group. It’s hilarious (and disgusting!).
Thank Mother Nature’s artistry and humor.
I have found this once in my yard as well! (Central Valley, California) very weird. I have other strange things that come up also, kinda looks like a claw or finger — have not been able to identify as yet… but I don’t like them!