Phallus ravenelii: the common stinkhorn, Ravenel’s stinkhorn
THE MUSHROOM
The Stinkhorn is aptly named for the foul odor it exudes and its horn-like shape. The odor can be likened to decaying flesh or feces. Why would anything smell so disgusting? Why, to attract flies which land on the head of the mushroom. Then, spores stick to the legs of the insects and are dispersed by them. That explains the stink. The shape of these mushrooms can’t be explained by modern science.
Stumbling upon this mushroom in the woods for the first time, one may be taken by surprise to find such a phallic thing protruding through the leaf litter, hence the name of the genus and the whole order, the Phallales. Today’s star, Phallus ravenelii, is named in honor of Henry William Ravenel (1814-1887) an important South Carolina mycologist and botanist.
APPEARANCE
The pileus or head of P. ravenelii is covered with a grey/olive-colored slimy spore mass. It is approximately 1–4 cm wide and 3–5 cm high. Atop the head is an open white ring, which some describe as “mouth-like.” The spores are 4 x 1–2 µm, elliptical, smooth, and colorless. The elongated stem is whitish and hollow, with a spongy texture. The whole thing gets to be about 10–15 cm tall. The volva is a gelatinous bulb at the base of the mushroom–light pinkish in color. A mature mushroom lasts only a day or two before subsiding.
ECOLOGY
The mushroom begins as an egg-like structure with an outer covering (peridium) and layered interior that may be multi-colored and gelatinous (a stinkhorn egg is shown on the first page of this blog). The stipe bursts out of the peridium and “mushrooms” to full size in just a few hours (see our amazing time lapse of stinkhorn emergence). Many will not find this malodorous mushroom appetizing, though the immature egg form is a delicacy in some parts of the world. A fun demonstration can be conducted by digging a stinkhorn egg out of the ground and bringing it home. Keep it moist, place it in a jar and watch it become a fully-grown mushroom over a day or so!
Ravenel’s stinkhorn is fairly common in the late summer and early autumn, and is found in North America from Québec to Florida, and west to the Midwestern states. It is a saprobe, often growing on well-rotted wood and commonly found in mulched flower beds. It grows in scattered clusters, commonly in groups of two or three. Because of its smell, many are displeased to find it.
A MUSHROOM OF GREAT INTRIGUE
It is not surprising that many people have found this mushroom to be surprising, amusing, even offensive. Through the combination of its odor and phallic resemblance, it has earned an infamous place in the history of human-mushroom interactions.
Stinkhorns have been connected to witchcraft, disease, and the devil (being called devil’s eggs, “Daimonum ova”). They even come up in very early literature. Pliny the Elder wrote about the in his Natural History, 1st century AD. Also, the first booklet ever written about a specific mushroom was about stinkhorns in Holland, 1564!5
Stinkhorns’ phallic nature has caused a lot of excitement among human-kind; some have even taken them for a sort of aphrodisiac. In his book3, N.P. Money, goes into some detail about how the remarkable resemblance goes beyond just the look! It seems that stinkhorns are comparable with mammalian penises because both “erections” are maintained by pressurized fluid rather than solid tissue. Blood supports a real penis, while the stinkhorn is supported by water through osmotic pressure.
Charles Darwin’s sister daughter Henrietta “Etty” Darwin hated stinkhorn mushrooms with an unusual passion:
In our native woods there grows a kind of toadstool called in the vernacular The Stinkhorn (though in Latin it bears a grosser name). The name is justified for the fungus can be hunted by scent alone, and this was Aunt Etty’s great invention. Armed with a basket and a pointed stick, and wearing a special hunting cloak and gloves, she would sniff her way through the wood, pausing here and there, her nostrils twitching when she caught a whiff of her prey. Then with a deadly pounce she would fall upon her victim and poke his putrid carcass into her basket. At the end of the day’s sport the catch was brought back and burnt in the deepest secrecy on the drawing room fire with the door locked–because of the morals of the maids.
Gwen Raverat, Period Piece (1952)
Is there any other (seemingly) harmless plant or fungi that has caused such great upset?
And finally, perhaps the most amazing discovery I made while perusing stinkhorn literature was a study4 that used mathematical modeling to show that a stinkhorn growing from beneath a paved road can produce the very powerful force of 1.33 kN/m2. Three stinkhorns can lift about 400 kg! Never underestimate the power of mushrooms!
- Schaechter, E. 1997. In the Company of Mushrooms. Harvard Univ. Press. Excerpt: What is a stinkhorn? Harvard University Press Website, accessed Oct. 2006.
- Milner, Richard. Descent with modification: a great-grandson of Charles Darwin’s opens new vistas into the voyage of the Beagle. Natural History, April, 2005
- Money, Nicholas P. 2002. Mr. Bloomfield’s Orchard: The mysterious world of mushrooms, molds, and mycologists. Oxford University Press.
- Niksic, M., Hadzic I., and M. Glisic. 2004. Is Phallus impudicus a mycological giant?
Mycologist 18: 21-22. - E. Schaechter & Wilson, N. A mycological voice from the past. [online translation of Hadrianus Junius’ 1564 work on Phallus hadrianii]. Accessed Dec 2006.
- Wong, G. University of Hawaii at Manoa. Botany 135 website (accessed Oct. 2006).
Photos by the author.
Nice stinkhorn story! The account of Charles Darwin’s sister is a fungal classic of Victorian oddness.
Finally! Now I know what they are. I live in the San Diego area and these things are lifting up our blacktop driveway! Is there a way to get rid of them? They pop their stinkin heads up right through the blacktop.
Lucky you, Dan. Elsewhere I have suggested paving as a means of suppressing stinkhorns, but I see you have tried this approach in vain. You will never catch me advocating for fungicide drenches, which I feel are environmentally irresponsible. Perhaps some of my readers have clever (or witty) suggestions?
p.s. It’d be cool to see a photo of this phenomenon when the time comes this year.
We have several in our yard that routinely spring up. The difference is that the stem is a coral color. Otherwise, they look just like the picture. Is it possible that they would make tomatoes taste icky if they grow near them?
Hiya Theresa, a pinkish-stemmed stinkhorn with a cap might be Phallus rubicundus; without a cap it might be a Mutinus species.
The idea of eating near a stinkhorn makes me nauseous. However, I think the tomatoes will be fine if you eat them elsewhere–just give them a rinse first.
Henrietta was Darwin’s daughter, not his sister, as above. Her erotophobia extended beyond the mushrooms, by the way. She ruthlessly edited out any untoward sensuality in Darwin’s later writing, including mentions of his grandfather, Erasmus’ famed love of women.
Thanks for the correction, Christopher!
Oct.20,2008 We live in Mississippi and are having a terrible time with the stinkhorn mushrooms. Is their any way to get rid of them?
Hi Ruth, I don’t know any reliable way to get rid of them, aside from picking them as eggs and sending them to school with small children for show and tell. This might show a certain enmity to teachers, but I think the spectacle of a stinkhorn “hatching” inside a (well-sealed) jar is worth the suffering that might ensue.
I have a much better picture of one……………………. so disgusting.
I noticed a foul smell last spring and then about 2 weeks ago after having a backyard bonfire party the smell was horrific! It took me about a week to figure out the culprit. Ugggg, what a mushroom. I also have coral colored mushrooms that resemble a the female anatomy and the tall white/olive phallic mushrooms. Are they the same?
Delighted to find your blog. . .I noticed a strong “mushroom” scent this morning and found 4 Phallus Ravenelii growing up through the wood fibre mulch by my Florida palm trees. I photographed them, and really had to look them up because I had heard of “stinkhorns” and thought that must be what I had, but the scent was not at all unpleasant. It just smelled to me like strong mushroom soup (which I love) . . . ?? Perhaps I am losing my sense of smell. . .or perhaps repugnance is a learned response? The scent of skunk (which I did not know was skunk) to me represented a fun trip to my Grandfather’s farm. I was stunned when my brothers finally told me that smell was the awful “Skunk” of which I had heard horror stories. “. . .where ignorance is bliss. . .tis folly to be wise.”
Funny thing Ann, I am also in Fl. & photographed my first Phallus Ravenelii growing in my mulch on Dec. 4th, 2009. I stepped out in the pre-dawn hours & spied the weird thing from about 20 feet away. When I got a flashlight & looked at it up close I was certainly surprised! LOL! Mother Nature certainly has a sense of humor. Like Ann, (yes, same first name), to me, they just smell quite strongly of normal mushroom scent. Oddly enough, I have a mild allergy to eating mushrooms. Am delighted to have found this site so I could identify the odd discovery.
So we recently discovered this tube like black top thing coming out of the ground. I had thought my husband stuck a piece of PVC in the ground and burned the top for some reason because it was near the garage. When I asked him about it we both looked and realized it was some kind of mushroom 3 were in the area. We brushed them off with our shoes and in a few days they were back. We didn’t notice any nasty smell BUT….. we had a really bad cat problem in our neighborhood and we just realized that we havn’t seen any cats on our lawn since these things started growing. Could it be? Could the smell actually be kepping them away? If so how can I get these to stay around? The cat issue is really bad I’ve had up to 12 cats in my lawn leaving a mess, urinating, pooping and spraying.
Yep, that’s what I have, the Phallus Ravenelii. I live in a townhome community and only have a small flower bed. There is a small square by the sidewalk and then divides the two, with only a tree infront and shrubs down the middle. (the other side of the builing is vacant)I have had this problem two years in a row and plan to have it again.
The landscaper did not know what it was and sent it to a university near by, three weeks later he said he hadn’t found anything and so I started my research online and found out all this information. Then I called him up to educate him…needless to say I was not pleased with having to tell him about them. He also commentted that it was the worst case he had ever seen (then why didn’t he know what they were?) Like I said, I have a VERY small space and at the very least there were 60 of them. I am planning to move in the near future and sure won’t be able to sell with my little, oh I mean HUGE problem. And not to mention, the extremely foul odor will not invite potential buyers in.
So, what can I do to kill them? Yes, I will do anything…I’d rather have dead stuff than stinky pen*ses growing everywhere! Please help! Desperate & Determined, Laura
I was researching these, and on another forum I saw a suggestion that pouring household ammonia over them will kill them. They like dead wood, so you may be seeing them in mulch? You might be able to rake that out.
Someone else sugggested digging up the “devil’s eggs” that they grow from; supposedly they look like they’re hatching when they’re first coming up, so I’m guessing the eggs aren’t too small to find.
Hope that helps!
The eggs I found in my flower garden are nearly the size of a chicken egg. I started finding them while gardening. Some days later the mushrooms appeared. The source has to be the mulch as this is the only place in my yard whree they grow. It makes for some interesting conversation if you have morning guests arriving at the house.