Stinkhorn - Phallus impudicus

The fruiting body emerges from an 'egg' usually buried just under the leaf litter.  It then grows into a tall whitish phalloid strucutre capped by an olive-green spore-mass or gleba that smells of rotting meat, attracting flies.  The sticky gleba adheres to their legs.  Once the flies have dispersed the spores, the honeycombed head is revealed.   

Indicator Species - Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland Local Nature Recovery Strategy.

Photograph in habitat; note substrate and habitat.

Coniferous and deciduous woods, and other wooded areas.

summer and autumn

Frequent throughout Britain

Fairly common in Leicestershire and Rutland.