92 THE STINKING PHALLUS. 
flows rather more copiously from the roots : in general 
appearance like A. varius. It may possibly be passed 
over as that species ; but this is a race which being 
local, precarious, mutable, or fugacious, is seen by the 
wandering naturalist alone, and we must leave these 
mysterious but beautiful productions of nature to their 
solitudes and woods.* 
As weeds will grow with flowers, the unsightly with 
the beautiful, so do we meet with here much more 
abundantly that extraordinary and offensive production 
the stinking phallus (phallus impudicus). They do not 
dwell near each other, however; this being found in 
the month of June on many of our hedge-banks. The 
smell it discharges has been thought to be like that 
arising from some decayed animal substance ; but it is 
of a much more subtle kind, as if the animal fetor had 
been volatilized by carbonate of ammonia. Many per- 
sons in their country walks, at this period of the year, 
must have been occasionally surprised by a sudden dis- 
agreeable smell of this nature, and probably concluded 
that it proceeded from some dead animal, when most 
likely it was produced by this fungus : yet to find it is 
not always an easy matter ; for the odor is so diffused on 
all sides, that it rather leads us astray from the object 
than aids our search, the plant being hidden frequently 
in the depth of the hedge. I have at times found it by 
watching the flight of the flies, which are attracted by 
its fetor. This strong smell is supposed to reside in 
the green gelatinous substance which is attached to the 
cell of the pileus ; but the odor is at times discharged 
by this phallus, before the stem has arisen from the egg. 
like wrapper by which it is inclosed. This is a very un- 
pleasant plant to delineate, as its odor, when in a room, 
is so very offensive, that few persons would willingly 
tolerate its presence ; and its growth is so rapid in an 
increased temperature, that the form and appearance 
* Pileus— conical, one inch occasionally in diameter — -pale gray 
becoming ocherous, summit orange, flesh thin. 
Lamellae — fixed, white, four in a set, stained in places. 
Stipes — fistular, long, chestnut at the base, upwards pale brown ; 
root long, trailing, woolly. 
