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Monday in Nature, November 6, 2017


sallymack

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Tony,

Oh, but a picture of fungi is worth at least a thousand words.:D

Yepper, it's a stinkhorn, and depending on where you are (England?) its probably Phallus impudicus. Isn't that a great name? Just makes me want to spit it out with impunity. These have a few name changes, but that's the name used by First Nature. (First Nature is a link to the mushroom on the site.....I don't know why pnet cant get the links to show unless they are hovered over)

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Thanks very much, Laura - about ten minutes after I took the shot (yesterday) a family with two kids and a dog kicked it over - when I asked why, they said because it was poisonous. Sigh.

 

Tony, IF it were poisonous, wouldn't kicking it spread the presumably poisonous spores more quickly and widely than otherwise? People!

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Tony, IF it were poisonous, wouldn't kicking it spread the presumably poisonous spores more quickly and widely than otherwise? People!

 

Truth be known, flies spread the spores. They will find remnants of stinkhorns if kicked into the next county. They will even want to lick the goo left on the kids shoes. So, yes, kicking them will attract flies to a further away location, and then spores will be taken even further.

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Thanks, Laura - yet another thing I didn't know ! I realised the flies were attracted to the apparent aroma (which I cannot smell, yet I can follow a fox if one's been around !), but didn't know they were instrumental in that way too. So, in fact, the apparent ecological vandalism may have had a beneficial outcome. Serve them right.
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