This odd looking mushroom popped up the other day. Can anyone help identify it? Update: our friend Jeremy (Rancho Garbanzo) identified this as the common stinkhorn. Thanks Jeremy!
Here's my finger almost touching it for scale.
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Hello world!
2 years ago
Looked it up in Peterson's Field Guide to Mushrooms: It looks like it could be a bell morel or a half free morel, which are edible. It also looks similar to an early morel which is not.
ReplyDeleteAll the diagrams for those mushrooms show them cut in half lengthwise. It looks like the vital details you need to differentiate are on the inside of the mushroom.
Paul Stamets is probably the best mycologist this country has and has written several books- I would see if your library has his books because I think there's one that instructs how to grow mushrooms in addition to identifying them.
ReplyDeleteIt would be great if it is an edible morel and you had them coming up reliably every year!
It's a common stinkhorn:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mushroomexpert.com/phallus_impudicus.html
We came across these at our house a couple of years ago. They can develop a sack at the base that looks like some sort of alien egg complete with slime inside. Check out the other stinkhorns on that website. These are some of the most amazing mushrooms out there.
Yes, I was kind of hoping it was a morel but I think Jeremy got it right - common stink horn. Actually ours had that purple sack at the base shown in some of the pictures but it didn't show up on the first day. The thing I didn't mention was the odor that it emitted - kind of sweet and slightly... dare I say, sexual.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info. I hope more show up. We have some really crazy fungus around here sometimes
We had some of these growing in our yard earlier this year, too! They grew one after the other, close to each other, but not in exactly the same place.
ReplyDelete