mushroomy

Yesterday, I posted about a possible stinkhorn egg I found, today I was all excited to get home from work to see what kind of stinky marvel there would be in my lawn, but it turns out that the egg I photographed yesterday was pushed up from underneath by another egg until it was no longer connected to the mycelia, and so it did not develop at all.

So I cut the egg open, and it is undoubtedly a stinkhorn egg, probably the one that's very common in Colorado, Phallus impudicus.

Common or not, you gotta love a mushroom that has a Latin name like that! (it means "shameless penis")



Having never encountered a stinkhorn before, aside from photos of mature specimens, I didn't realize the eggs were that pinkish, chewed-sunbleached-bubblegum color.

At this stage, this mushroom is supposedly edible, and some consider it a delicacy. I, uh. Alright, I think it's mostly the spore mass that squicks me out, not the slimy, glutinous outer sac. Normally I'm gung-ho about eating weird mushrooms. I've eaten Gomphidius glutinosus... I've eaten several different slippery jacks. But, um...



Actually, this looks FAR more appetizing than the mushroom appears when it's at maturity... when, presumably, no one in his right mind would eat it.

In Arora's book "Mushrooms Demystified", he quotes someone saying (about the eggs of P. impudicus): "semigelatinous, tenacious and elastic, like bubbles of some thick substance. In this condition, they demand to be eaten... cut in slices and fried or stewed, they make a most tender, agreeable food."

Alright, maybe I'll try one eventually. Right now, I'm not hungry.