# Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus)

**Phallus impudicus**

**Known today as.** A white, phallic mushroom capped with stinking green slime, hatched from a buried “egg.”

Kind: Fungus

## What was it used for?

The “eggs” were eaten in folk medicine against gout and as a love charm.

## What does modern science say?

Flies eat the slime and carry off the spores. The egg is edible.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **dimethyl sulfide and methanethiol**: the carrion smell of the gleba
- **polysaccharides**: in the egg

**Mechanism.** The “egg” is edible and mild, and the folk uses for gout and love rest on the shape of the mature fungus; the smell is the chemistry of carrion, which draws the flies that spread the spores. Darwin’s daughter Etty is recorded burning them from the woods for decency.

**Dose.** A food in the egg stage.

**Standing.** A curiosity; eaten pickled in parts of France and Germany.

## What lore surrounds it?

Called witch’s egg or devil’s egg in the egg stage. Gwen Raverat recalls in *Period Piece* how her aunt Etty, Charles Darwin’s daughter, hunted stinkhorns in the woods and burned them in secret, for the sake of the maids’ morals.

## Sources

- Raverat, G. (1952). *Period Piece*.
- Johnson, S. D., and Jürgens, A. (2010). “Convergent evolution of carrion and faecal scent mimicry in fly-pollinated angiosperm flowers and a stinkhorn fungus.” *South African Journal of Botany* 76.

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*Stinkhorn.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-09-25. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/stinkhorn

Historical description, not medical advice.