This Funky Looking (and Smelling) Fungus Could Pop Up in Your Indiana Yard

If you’ve spent any time wandering through the woods this time of year in Indiana, you know it’s basically the Super Bowl season for mushroom hunters. And while morels tend to steal the spotlight, they’re just one small part of a much bigger fungi family here in the Hoosier State.

Indiana is the Land of a Thousand Mushrooms!

Fun fact: Indiana is home to more than 2,000 different kinds of mushrooms – and some of them are just a little more interesting than others.

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I was scrolling through the Evansville Gardeners Facebook page when one of the photos caught my eye. David Dudenhofer shared a picture of one of the most unique mushrooms I’ve ever seen. I had to giggle when I saw it (because I have a 12-year-old’s sense of humor), but then I really wanted to learn more about it.

The Unique Stinkhorn Mushroom Explained

The funky-looking fungus is a stinkhorn mushroom, which is fairly common in Indiana. This particular one appears to be the Mutinus elegans, or the "elegant stinkhorn." It’s also known as the dog stinkhorn and the devil’s dipstick (for obvious reasons). Nothing really elegant about those nicknames, huh?

Why Stinkhorn Mushrooms Smell So Bad

It seems like just about everything that happens in nature happens for a reason - and that is certainly the case with stinkhorn mushrooms. The reason for the stink comes down to survival. A-Z-Animals.com explains...