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33-526: Several gasteroid fungi—such as the stinkhorn, Phallus impudicus L.—were formally described by Carl Linnaeus in his original Species Plantarum of 1753, but the first critical treatment of the group was by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon in his Synopsis methodica fungorum of 1801. Until 1981, this book was the starting point for the naming of Gasteromycetes under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants . Although

66-462: A conical cap 2 to 4 cm (0.8 to 1.6 in) high that is covered with the greenish-brown slimy gleba. In older fungi the slime is eventually removed, exposing a bare yellowish pitted and ridged ( reticulate ) surface. This has a passing resemblance to the common morel ( Morchella esculenta ), for which it is sometimes mistaken. The rate of growth of Phallus impudicus has been measured at 10–15 cm (4–6 in) per hour. The growing fruit body

99-424: A considerable distance in the woods, and at close quarters most people find the cloying stink extremely repulsive. The flies land in the gleba and in doing so collect the spore mass on their legs and carry it to other locations. An Austrian study demonstrated that blow-flies (species Calliphora vicina , Lucilia caesar , Lucilia ampullacea and Dryomyza anilis ) also feed on the slime, and soon after leaving

132-655: A cure for gout and as a love potion. In Northern Montenegro , peasants rub Phallus impudicus on the necks of bulls before bull fighting contests in an attempt to make them stronger. They are also fed to young bulls as they are thought to be a potent aphrodisiac . In 1777, the reverend John Lightfoot wrote that the people of Thuringia called the unopened stinkhorns "ghost's or daemon's eggs" and dried and powdered them before mixing them in spirits as an aphrodisiac. Writing about life in Victorian Cambridge, Gwen Raverat (granddaughter of Charles Darwin ) describes

165-426: A mixture of forms which are derived from various lineages.... [they] can be collectively referred to as gasteroid fungi , but they cannot be classified as a single group." DNA-based systematic research has confirmed the diversity of the gasteroid fungi; According to a 2011 estimate, gasteroid fungi comprise about 8.4% of the known Agaricomycetes . The gasteroid fungi form visibly diverse fruit bodies, but in all cases

198-728: A mutually beneficial relationship with the roots of living trees. These species are cosmopolitan , but the stinkhorns and their allies are most diverse in the wet tropics. Producing spores in an enclosed fruit body is a suitable adaptation for growing in arid conditions. Several genera, including Podaxis , Battarrea , Phellorinia , and Tulostoma , are typical of steppes and deserts, some also occurring in sand dunes in temperate zones. Phallus impudicus Phallus volvatus Batsch (1783) Phallus foetidus Sowerby (1803) Morellus impudicus ( Pers. ) Eaton (1818) Ithyphallus impudicus (L.) E.Fischer (1888) Phallus impudicus , known colloquially as

231-538: A potential source of disease to the badger colony. The laxative effect of the gleba reduces the distance from the fruiting body to where the spores are deposited, ensuring the continued production of high densities of stinkhorns. The common stinkhorn can be found throughout much of Europe and North America , and it has also been collected in Asia (including China , Taiwan, and India ), Costa Rica , Iceland , Tanzania , and southeast Australia . In North America, it

264-461: A star-like manner to reveal the puffball-like spore sack. The stinkhorns and their allies, including the genera Phallus , Mutinus , Clathrus , and Lysurus , form spores within internally gelatinous, puffball-like 'eggs'. At maturity the eggs split and various strange spore-receptacles emerge. The spores are coated with a putrid smelling slime that attracts flies—these being the agents of dispersal. The bird's nest fungi, which include

297-432: A zone 24 to 39 metres (79 to 128 ft) from the entrances; the setts typically harbor a regularly-available supply of badger cadavers – the mortality rate of cubs is high, and death is more likely to occur within the sett. The fruiting of large numbers of stinkhorns attracts a high population of blow-flies ( Calliphora and Lucilla breed on carrion); this ensures the rapid elimination of badger carcasses, removing

330-407: Is a common cause of death in breast cancer patients; patients with recurrent disease are typically maintained on anticoagulants for their lifetimes. A research study has suggested that extracts from P. impudicus can reduce the risk of this condition by reducing the incidence of platelet aggregation, and may have potential as a supportive preventive nutrition. It was used in medieval times as

363-442: Is able to exert up to 1.33  kPa of pressure — a force sufficient to push up through asphalt . The spores have an elliptical to oblong shape, with dimensions of 3–5 to 1.5–2.5  μm . In North America, Phallus impudicus can be distinguished from the very similar P. hadriani by the latter's purplish-tinted volva. The dispersal of spores is different from most "typical" mushrooms that spread their spores through

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396-447: Is derived from the Latin for "shameless" or "immodest". Sometimes called the witch's egg , the immature stinkhorn is whitish or pinkish, egg-shaped, and typically 4 to 6 cm (1.6 to 2.4 in) by 3 to 5 cm (1.2 to 2.0 in). On the outside is a thick whitish volva , also known as the peridium , covering the olive-colored gelatinous gleba . It is the latter that contains

429-498: Is most common west of the Mississippi River ; Ravenel's stinkhorn ( Phallus ravenelii ) is more common to the east. The fungus is associated with rotting wood, and as such it is most commonly encountered in deciduous woods where it fruits from summer to late autumn, though it may also be found in conifer woods or even grassy areas such as parks and gardens. It may also form mycorrhizal associations with certain trees. At

462-479: Is tall and white with a slimy, dark olive colored conical head. Known as the gleba , this material contains the spores , and is transported by insects which are attracted by the odor—described as resembling carrion . Despite its foul smell, it is not usually poisonous and immature mushrooms are consumed in parts of France , Germany and the Czech Republic . The Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi described

495-427: Is very thick and tough. At maturity it splits irregularly over the upper part of the basidiocarp to reveal the dark gleba underneath. Spores are produced in small brownish-purple, pea-like bodies called peridioles that initially are outlined by wall-like aggregations of white hyphae . These peridioles disintegrate as the fruit body matures, and by the time the peridium splits open, only a powdery mass of dark spores

528-554: The Boletales order, in suborder Sclerodermatineae . The best known species are S. citrinum and S. verrucosum . They are found worldwide. Various members of this genus are used as inoculation symbionts to colonize and promote the growth of tree seedlings in nurseries. They are not edible. The name comes from the Greek sclera meaning hard and derma meaning skin . The peridium (outer wall), which may be smooth or warted,

561-537: The common stinkhorn , is a widespread fungus in the Phallaceae (stinkhorn) family. It is recognizable for its foul odor and its phallic shape when mature, the latter feature giving rise to several names in 17th-century England. It is a common mushroom in Europe and North America, where it occurs in habitats rich in wood debris such as forests and mulched gardens. It appears from summer to late autumn. The fruiting structure

594-450: The 'sport' of stinkhorn hunting: 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 the scent alone; and this was Aunt Etty's great invention. Armed with a basket and a pointed stick, and wearing special hunting cloak and gloves, she would sniff her way round

627-616: The Gasteromycetes with the Hymenomycetes, where spores are produced externally on gills , pores, and other surfaces. This convenient division continued to be used for the next 150 years or so, although by the middle of the twentieth century it had become evident that Gasteromycetes was an artificial class (bringing together a miscellany of unrelated species) and not a natural one. In a 1995 study of British species, by Pegler et al. noted that "these fungi represent an heterogeneous assemblage,

660-465: The air. Stinkhorns instead produce a sticky spore mass on their tip which has a sharp, sickly-sweet odor of carrion to attract flies and other insects. Odorous chemicals in the gleba include methanethiol , hydrogen sulfide , linalool , trans - ocimene , phenylacetaldehyde , dimethyl sulfide , and dimethyl trisulfide . The latter compound has been found to be emitted from fungating cancerous wounds. The mature fruiting bodies can be smelled from

693-497: The egg stage, pieces of the inner layer (the receptaculum ) can be cut out with a knife and eaten raw. They are crisp and crunchy with an attractive radishy taste. The fungus is enjoyed and eaten in France and parts of Germany , where it may be sold fresh or pickled and used in sausages . Similar species are consumed in China. Venous thrombosis , the formation of a blood clot in a vein,

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726-408: The fruit body wears away, exposing the spore mass inside) or by raindrops. In the latter case, the fruit bodies develop an ostiole (apical hole) through which spores are puffed out by the pressure of raindrops falling on the fruit body surface. The same ingenious mechanism has evolved separately in the earthstars ( Geastrum species), which have a hard outer layer to the fruitbody that splits open in

759-481: The fruit body, they deposit liquid feces that contain a dense suspension of spores. The study also showed that beetles ( Oeceoptoma thoracica and Meligethes viridescens ) are attracted to the fungus, but seem to have less of a role in spore dispersal as they tend to feed on the hyphal tissue of the fruiting body. There is also a possible ecological association between the P. impudicus and badger ( Meles meles ) setts . Fruiting bodies are commonly clustered in

792-585: The fungus in 1560 with name fungus priapeus , and he depicted it in his series of water-coloured plates called teatro della natura ('nature's theater' 1560–1590). Another botanist, John Gerard called it the "pricke mushroom " or "fungus virilis penis effigie" in his General Historie of Plants of 1597, and John Parkinson referred to it as "Hollanders workingtoole" or "phallus hollandicus" in his Theatrum botanicum of 1640. Linnaeus described it in his 1753 Species Plantarum , and it still bears its original binomial name. Its specific epithet , impudicus ,

825-412: The genera Cyathus and Crucibulum , form miniature, egg-like packets of spores within cup-shaped fruit bodies. These packets of spores are ejected by rain-splash and may land some distance away, the packets gradually wearing away to release the spores themselves. False truffles in such genera as Rhizopogon , Hymenogaster , and Melanogaster develop underground or at the soil surface. As with

858-416: The odor coming from greenish, viscous slime that carried its spores and dripped from the bell-shaped cap. And even today, among the uneducated, this morel was thought to be an aphrodisiac. In Danilo Kiš's novel Garden, Ashes the protagonist's father Eduard Schaum provokes the suspicions of the local residents and authorities through his mad wandering and sermonizing in the forests: The story went round, and

891-458: The psychologist Dr. Krokowski gives a lecture on the Phallus impudicus : And Dr. Krokowski had spoken about one fungus, famous since classical antiquity for its form and the powers ascribed to it -- a morel, its Latin name ending in the adjective impudicus , its form reminiscent of love, and its odor, of death. For the stench given off by the impudicus was strikingly like that of a decaying corpse,

924-494: The spores and later stinks and attracts the flies; within this layer is a green layer which will become the 'head' of the expanded fruit body; and inside this is a white structure called the receptaculum (the stalk when expanded), that is hard, but has an airy structure like a sponge. The eggs become fully grown stinkhorns very rapidly, over a day or two. The mature stinkhorn is 10 to 30 cm (3.9 to 11.8 in) tall and 4 to 5 cm (1.6 to 2.0 in) in diameter, topped with

957-455: The spores are formed and reach maturity internally. They are not discharged forcibly, as in agarics and most other members of the Basidiomycota, but are released passively in a variety of different ways. In the puffballs, which include the genera Lycoperdon , Bovista , and Calvatia , spores are formed within spherical to pestle-shaped fruit bodies and are released either by wind (as

990-517: The starting point was subsequently put back to 1753, names of gasteroid fungi used in Persoon's book are still sanctioned and cannot be replaced by earlier names. Elias Magnus Fries introduced the name Gasteromycetes for a class of fungi in his Systema Mycologicum of 1821, although (not using a microscope) he included many species of the Ascomycota (such as truffles ) within the class. Fries contrasted

1023-555: The true truffles, some of them have distinctive smells and are actively hunted out by small mammals which may consume them and spread their spores. Some New Zealand secotioid fungi in the genus Leratiomyces are shaped and coloured like berries and their spores may be dispersed by ground-dwelling birds. Most gasteroid fungi are saprotrophic , living on dead plant material, including very rotten, fallen wood. The earthballs ( Scleroderma species), dyeballs ( Pisolithus species), and many false truffles are ectomycorrhizal , forming

Gasteroid fungi - Misplaced Pages Continue

1056-453: The wood, pausing here and there, her nostrils twitching, when she caught a whiff of her prey; then at last, 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 . In Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain ( Der Zauberberg ),

1089-467: Was preached from the pulpit, that his iron-tipped cane possessed magical powers, that trees withered like grass whenever he walked in the Count's forest, that his spit produced poisonous mushrooms -- Ithyphalus impudicus --that grew under the guise of edible, cultivated varieties. Scleroderma (fungus) Scleroderma is a genus of fungi , commonly known as earth balls , now known to belong to

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