A couple of stinkhorn mushrooms. Elegant, no? Well, elegant stinkhorn (Mutinus elegans) is what these things are called. The French, being French, mince not: Phalle élégant.
I usually see these in mulch piles, but these two were sprouting from the grassy mix under a Turkish filbert.
Most mushrooms disperse spores via the air. These phallocratic fungi have a fetid mucus which attracts gnats and flies. The spores stick to the insects… I got pretty close for these pictures, but, battling mosquitos, did not notice any stench.
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This work by Matthew Wills is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
I thought these were called dog penis mushrooms..or is it a look alike?
Multiple common names for these things… for obvious reasons!