Wednesday, July 3, 2013

What's that Stink?!



Heading up the Blue Trail from Hope Lake to Eklund Garden, you may start to catch a whiff of weird stink when you get to Oak Valley Road.  The stink is emanating from some unusual mushrooms growing in the woodchips next to the Eklund Garden kiosk. 


These look like they are "Stinky Squids,"  one of the Stinkhorn fungi, all of which attract flies to spread their spores. They reportedly do this by trying to smell like "carrion or dung,"  although I didn't think they smelled quite like a dead animal. More like some really horrible perfume. The Stinkhorn family of mushrooms are mostly found in the tropics. 

 

3 comments:

  1. Our weather has been tropical so why not? Thanks for the head's up about the stinky mushrooms.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Now you know probably where the wood chips came from... :)

    ReplyDelete