Late last night, as I was taking the dog for a walk in the deep fog, this phallic creature below greeted me at the bottom of my front stairs.

My first thought was that I was about to be attacked by a snake so I took the proper precautions and shoved the dog in front of me so she could take the brunt of the attack. But there was no movement so I was able to calm down a bit.

I then got closer to the creature and the smell became overwhelming. It was like feces flavored …. feces. No lie, it was awful and that is coming from someone with a deviated septum.

I eventually figured out it was some type of mushroom (hence the post title) and waited until early this morning to take a photo. And with the wonders of Google, quickly learned what I had on my hands (and nose). It is a Stinkhorn mushroom, specifically a “dog Stinkhorn”. Now the best part, I found this information on a website dedicated to phallic mushrooms in New Jersey and the name of the website is (insert childlike chuckle here) www.richard-seaman.com. You can’t make this stuff up!

Some other factoids:

• Falls under the family Phallaceae (also known as Stinkhorn)
• Notorious for popping up very quickly, usually in urban areas 
• Found all over the world but most common in tropical areas
• If in non tropical areas, believed to be due to transportation of soil, wood chips,etc.
• Known for their spore masses smelling like, you guessed it, “dung”
• Not harmful to people or animals

May smell like death, but what a cool discovery. I am now more educated on mushrooms and fear not if you see one of these emerge in your yard overnight.