Seeing a beautiful photograph of this fungus over on the Blog Dadirridreaming written by Christine Whitelaw, I remembered that I had also photographed a large group of these, typically tropical rain forest species, growing on the roadside in Trinity Beach, Queensland, Australia, several years ago. It was a cultivated patch with shrubs and a layer of bark litter on the ground. A hose pipe was in position to automatically water the area.
I was amazed to see these strange phallus-shaped fungi growing in such profusion. Some were specimens fully emerged; and others were still in egg-like structures just protruding from the ground from which new specimens would soon emerge. The last photo (11) in the series of images in this posting shows a double-headed specimen.
These weird and wonderful fungi have been called many things – Bridal Veil Stinkhorn, Long Net Stinkhorn, Crinoline Stinkhorn, Basket Stinkhorn, Veiled Lady, and Bamboo Fungus ….but the Latin name for the fungus is Phallus indusiatus. There is a good and well-illustrated description of the species over on mysabah Blog published by Murphy .
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amazing jessica, how fabulous to find such a large group of these fascinating fungi!
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There’s something quite expressive about these, difficult not to anthropomorphize them, especially when they’re all huddled together like that. Anyway, gorgeous photos, thanks for these.
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In the UK I have found similar groupings in the wild of our native species of Stinkhorn, Phallus impudicus.
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Thank you, Tentative Plant Scientist. I know what you mean. It’s easy to visualise all sorts of scenarios from these pictures of stinkhorns en masse.
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so you are english? are you living in qld?
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Yes, I’m English and I live in Dorset, England, but I spent six weeks in Queensland and took 8,000 photographs while I was there. I am only now able to sort through them and publish some on my Blogs.
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wow, amazing number of photos, i will enjoy seeing some of them … do you study biology?
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Thanks, Christine. I am retired now and can indulge my love of natural history and photography. My working life was as a research biologist, and I continue to study and learn every day.
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the only way to live 😉
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