Shocking, vile, outrageous, repellent, bizarre, or just plain “gross” — take your pick of any number of adjectives for this thing. The scientific name may be translated as “disgusting” and “red.”
Of course, it is not a plant at all, but a fungus. This week’s mystery may not be a plant, but it is still mysterious. (At one time, all organisms on earth were presumed to be either plant or animal, but considerable scientific research has modified this scheme to include other groups. Although they are not true plants, the study of fungi remains a component of botany.)
Our fungus is one of the fascinating members of the “stinkhorn” group, which are related to familiar mushrooms and puffballs. All of the stinkhorns are characterized by producing a strong odor at the time their spores are shed, and this one is no exception.
This strange and harmless little monster is actually widely distributed around the world, including the Southeast, commonly showing up in forests and in gardens on rotting vegetation, including mulch. When the conditions are right, they emerge rapidly from an egg-like structure at or just below the surface of the ground. A soft, hollow, columnar stalk will appear, and at the top, 3-4 inches above the ground, the reproductive portion will split open into 5-10 elongated arms, each of which will branch. The arms and “tentacles” are generally bright red or orange, and they give this organism the look of a starfish, or to my way of thinking, a sea-anemone. The center of the red surface often shows an opening, and eventually a dark, oozing, slimy, messy, mass will appear. This slime, which is where the spores are produced, can be really smelly. The fetid vapors, along with the lurid color, make the whole thing very interesting to flies. Sure enough, visiting flies will wade through and eat the delicious goo, inadvertently picking up spores. The flies will spread these spores to new areas, thus dispersing the fungus.
How wonderful if you have one or more appear in your yard. Don’t worry; they aren’t poisonous, although it’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to eat one of these things. They actually possess a strange, unearthly beauty. True, they might smell sort of funny, but they only last a day or so before disappearing completely. You’ll be the envy of the block when you invite your neighbors to the backyard for show-and-tell.
John Nelson is the curator of the A. C. Moore Herbarium at the University of South Carolina, in the Department of Biological Sciences. As a public service, the Herbarium offers free plant identifications. For more information on this service, visit www.herbarium.org or call 803-777-8196.