Witch's Eggs & Stinkhorns for Samhain
Emma said "gleba"
There’s a muddy footpath near my house which seems to provide the perfect environment for fungi at this time of year. Earlier this month, something along the path caught my eye. At first glance I thought they were puffballs, but on closer inspection the creamy-white mushrooms didn’t look like puffballs at all and one looked like it had been sliced open, revealing some sort of mystery goo.
It turned out what I’d found were witch’s eggs, the immature stage of the common stinkhorn mushroom, Phallus Impudicus.
I don’t think they’re especially hard to come by, but I’ve only come across one mature stinkhorn before and, well, I can see why they have the word ‘phallus’ in their Scientific name…
The impudicus part is Latin for ‘immodest’ or ‘shameless', so this mushroom is, quite literally, a shameless phallus.
It seems the Victorians were quite ashamed of these fungi though, and would bash them with sticks in order to hide them from impressionable young ladies. God forbid women would see a phallic mushroom! Charles Darwin's daughter, Etty, was apparently known to swiftly remove any stinkhorns she came across in her neighbourhood and burn them, just to make sure they didn’t corrupt her maids’ purity of thought!
The 16th-century botanist, John Gerard, called common stinkhorn ‘the pricke mushroom’ or ‘fungus virilis penis effigie’, which I think would make a pretty great band name… as would ‘devil's horn’ and ‘Satan's member’, some of the other common names for this mushroom.
OK enough phalluses… The outside of these witch’s eggs is actually called the volva, and this covers the lovely, gelatinous slime that made me stop and look closer. Remember that episode of Friends where Emma’s first word is “gleba” and everyone tells Rachel it’s not a word, until she looks it up in the dictionary and finds a definition: “The fleshy spore-bearing inner mass of a certain fungi”. Well, that goo inside witch’s eggs is a gleba - “She’s going to be a scientist!”.
Eventually, when the mushroom is mature, this gleba will start to emit a smell like rotting flesh (hence the name stinkhorn), which attracts the flies and other insects it relies on to distribute its spores.
The central kernel of a witch’s egg is edible, and some say it tastes a bit like radish. If you’re feeling tempted to try some yourself (and how could you not when they look so appetising?!), I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you that other highly poisonous species, including death caps and destroying angels, also emerge from egg-like sacs, so do be careful if you go on a witch hunt this week…
Phallus Impudicus have been associated with witchcraft since the Medieval times, but other than the fact they are known as ‘witch's eggs’, or ‘witch's eyes’, I’m struggling to find much more info, so if you come across any witchy fungi folklore, please send it my way!
I was looking forward to seeing the witch’s eggs on that muddy footpath develop into their mature, phallic mushroom stage (I mean, who wouldn’t?!), but last time I went to check up on them they’d been kicked over! However, while researching for this article I found something that said if you collect a witch’s egg, you can pop it on some damp tissue and cover it with a glass, then watch the mushroom develop. It’s probably too late for me, but if you find any kicked-over spooky eggs, maybe you can give it a go - it’s the perfect Samhain activity!
Sources and Further Reading
The Grizzly Forager: Witch’s Eggs
Taste the Wild: Cooking with Phallus impudicus
Join Wild South London this Saturday in the FSC Classroom (Homestead Courtyard) in Beckenham Place Park for some Samhain activities. We’ll be making wildlife masks from recycled materials and doing wildlife themed colouring sheets and puzzles with everybody aged 3+. Drop in anytime between 11am and 1:45pm, but you can book free tickets here to let us know you’re coming.
A couple of tickets just became available for our folktale walk too - but you’ll have to be quick to snap them up!
Something I enjoyed…
If you’d like to learn more about Samhain/Halloween’s Irish roots, I very much recommend this episode of The Blindboy Podcast. One day I will recommend something other than episodes of The Blindboy Podcast in this section, I promise.
Important notice: Never eat something unless you’re 100-percent sure you can identify it correctly. Do your research and make sure it’s safe to eat, and in what quantities. In the UK, we have common law to forage the four Fs (fruit, flowers, fungi and foliage) for personal consumption, but never uproot anything without permission and only take what you need if it’s growing in abundance - leave enough for wildlife to thrive!
Please note that my fungi knowledge is limited, so if you think I’ve got anything wrong here please flag it and I’ll do some more research and make some edits!
Fascinating piece. Perhaps you have a modern-day Victorian living in your midst?!
Very interesting article, thanks. I've only seen Witches Eggs once, and mature Stinkhorns a couple of times, though there have also been a couple of times I've smelt the stinkhorn but not found where it is. The smell is strong and very distinctive