Dictyophora multicolor
Dictyophora multicolor
It’s amazing how many of the secrets of the rainforest display themselves in our rare, exotic, tropical fruit orchard. Dainty orchids like Oberonia titania and Cadetia taylori hang from the branches surrounded by an exceptional array of lichens. Insects are in abundance. Birds and butterflies are in full view where you can admire their beauty while you mow the grass.
Yesterday while doing a stint of mowing, I was rewarded with a beautiful bridal veil fungus. Not the usual white mantle that we see regularly in the forest. This one had an orange veil and a brown cap. It’s puff-ball beginnings were still there. I immediately did a U-turn and headed back to the house and photographer Neil. This was worthy of a place on our blog and more research.
The common name stinkhorn is most appropriate. The fruiting body begins as an “egg” stage, the puff-ball, from which the phallic-shaped fruiting body emerges over the course of a few hours. As it becomes erect the black slimy mass of spores on the cap begins to mature and smells like rotting meat. It is this offensive smell that attracts flies. Spores adhere to the legs and mouth parts of the flies. Eventually the flies land on some real rotting material, such as road kill, and the spores are transferred to a medium they can grow on. The fly may visit more than one stinkhorn, and this helps to cross-fertilize among members of the species. The stinkhorns seem to be absolutely dependent on the flies for the dissemination of their spores.
The stinkhorns are all members of the order Phallales. All member of this order produce a stinking mass of spores at some point. Dictyophora and Phallus species have a pileus differentiated at the top of the stalk. Dictyophora species all have a veil-like structure hanging down, while Phallus species lack the veil.
In China the phallic-like portion of the fungus is consumed as an aphrodisiac.