urbpan | 365 Urban Species. #175: Dog Stinkhorn

Photos by cottonmanifesto. Location: the Riverway, near Longwood ave, Brookline. The rain has washed the spores off this specimen, and caused it to sag.

Urban species #175: Dog stinkhorn Mutinus caninus

Nature produces an infinite variety of wondrous forms, elegant and grotesque. Some are even difficult to describe with polite language. The dog stinkhorn is one of these. Named for its remarkable resemblance to a canine penis, and possessing a truly rank odor, it seems engineered to offend the senses. There are other phallic stinkhorns, somewhat more human-like in appearance, that so offended the sensibility of people in the Victorian era, that they were deliberately persecuted.

Of course, Nature isn't interested in offending us. Just as She did not mean for us to share the bee's delight in the scent of a rose, She does not intend to revolt us with the reek of the stinkhorn. Rather, the smell evolved because it is a successful attractant to the flies that spread the spores of this fungus. The phallus is a shape that elevates the gooey spore mass above the well-decomposed woodchips or leaf litter in which the fungus usually grows. The lurid red color...well, that I can't explain, but it sure makes it look like a dog's penis.