Red Stinkhorn

Description:

This fungi produces spore slime which has an intense smell of rotting meat or faeces. They are very common on wood or bark-chip mulch in gardens, and on deep litter on the rainforest floor. There are a number of differently shaped species, but all are readily recognisable by the smell of the spore slime. Ants were attracted to this specimen - you can see them clearly in the first photo. The stem is really spongy, although it's not full of holes as one would think, but rather, very pitted which gives the spong-like effect. Perhaps as it rots it may develop holes, but only time will tell.

Habitat:

Found in my backyard in moist garden mulch after many days of rain. In Australia it grows mainly in the tropics and subtropics, in areas where rotten wood and/or mulch are present. Plenty of that in my yard, and I'd also spread some fresh manure around the garden. It's most likely that the fungi spores were transported via the manure.

Notes:

They weren't kidding when they named this one, because it is rotten. My cat Lillie was quite interested in today's activity, but I don't think she was overly impressed with the foul smell either. She was, however, the one that alerted me to its presence. I initially blamed her for the smell, thinking she had done her business but hadn't covered it up, not realising the culprit was another. About a month later I spotted a second species of stinkhorn, also found at the same location: http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/375...