A dried fungus reached me in rather round-about fashion, from “somebody in the Market building.” From its appearance I judged it was an uncommon species, so I sent it to the Dominion Botanist for naming. By return mail I got this reply: “The specimen you sent for identification, is, as you suggested, one of the phalloids, Mutinus Ravenelli (B.& C.) E. Fisher. There is no common name as far as I know except “Stinkhorn,” which is generally applied to the group as a whole and not to any particular species. Yours truly, J. Walton Groves, Plant Pathologist.”
I have entered this find in my records. As the phalloid fungi require extremely good soil and special circumstances for growing, they are naturally scarce. The only other specimen I have in my records I found at Mount Herbert on July 7th, 1922: It was Mutinus elegans, and was growing near a hen-house where the soil was “rich.”
Some of the group resemble a horn shape, and as the tip is covered with an extremely evil-smelling gluey substance, the country folk in Britain named the group “Stinkhorns.” The smell attracts flies which afterward carry the spores (roughly, seeds) of the fungus locations.
– Newsy Notes, October 29, 1948