Page 60 - Thola Issue 17

58 Stinkhorn Fungi
FIGURE 4A & B: Mature L. corallocephala showing the whitish stem with its network-like surface and the head of orange branches. Fig. 4B shows damage to its stem.
FIGURE 5A & B: Mature L. corallocephala starting to collapse. Fig, 5B has gleba still present on its branches and the remains of the volva at the base of its stem. A blowfly can be seen on one of the stems.
FIGURE 6: Collapsed and partially dried fruiting body of L. corallocephala showing damage to its stem.
started to grow upwards. It took another 9-10 hours for the stem to reach its full height so that by morning, the head had spread out its 12 to
15 irregular bright orange branches
(fig. 4A & B). Resembling, as its name suggests, one of the staghorn hard corals, these branches were arranged laterally around the head, with four or five more situated centrally. They varied in length and were either simple or bore secondary branches that sometimes coalesced to form rings. Generally, these heads grew to 40-55 mm but in some cases reached 90 mm so that the whole fruiting body attained a height of about 120 mm. The stems of these large examples had a beautiful lattice-like appearance (fig. 4A). Some had shorter stems and their branches remained close to the ground. All traces of the original egg generally disappeared, though in some cases, the remains of the egg wall persisted as a collar (or volva) around the base of the stem. After a further 12-24 hours, the fruiting
body bent over and collapsed onto
the soil (fig. 5A & B) where it quickly withered and disintegrated (fig. 6). All that remained a day or two later was a small, cup-shaped depression in the soil where the fungus had stood. It was all over within a week. We didn’t try to dig out the underground part of the stem.
Even before the branches of the fruiting body had unfolded, blobs of
a foul-smelling, viscous, brown liquid called gleba containing the spores
were seen on the head (figs 3A, 3B,
4B, 5B & 6). Particularly on the first
day, the odour emanating from this liquid could be smelt several metres away. It attracted several species of carrion-loving flies including Sepsidae (black scavenger flies), Drosophilidae (fruit flies) and the larger Calliphoridae (blowflies) and Sarcophagidae (flesh flies) (figs 4B, 5B & 7). Blowflies and fleshflies were the most frequent visitors and continued to be attracted to fruiting bodies that had collapsed and partially dried, and even those that had
been decapitated and were without any gleba (fig. 8).
A recent analysis of the scent put out by another local member of the Stinkhorn family, Clathrus archeri, by Steve Johnson and Andreas Jürgens, showed that it contained compounds such as oligosulphides that are typical of decaying animal matter and
aromatic organic compounds that give off unpleasant smells associated with faeces. Johnson and Jürgens see this as evidence for the putrid smell of stinkhorns mimicking rotting flesh and faeces in order to attract flies that typically lay their eggs in carrion and faeces. It is probable that after landing on and feeding on the gleba, these flies help in the dispersal
of L. corallocephala by carrying off its spores on their feet and mouthparts. Their mouthparts are superbly adapted for this, being spongy and well-suited to mopping up liquid food.
An interesting feature of these stinkhorns was that after only a few hours above ground, they frequently
thola: VOLUME 17. 2014/15
Fig. 5A Fig. 5B
Fig. 6
Fig. 4A