Its a Tad Smelly

  The other day, a friend showed me a photograph of something that had popped up in her flower garden with a question of its identity.  Stinkhorn...Devil's Toadstool...Devil's Fingers.  Yep. a foul-smelling, red mushroom had just "hatched" in her mulch.  (I say hatched because a lot of folks tend to think the round, white bud of a mushroom is actually an egg.)  She was rather miffed that something of this sort dare to invade her pristine garden plot.  "Why is it in my yard?  I do not let things like this grow here."  Well, sweet friend, get used to it.  These rascals are hard to eliminate short of digging up each "egg" and burning it.  They multiply like wildfire once they find their way into the yard and there are dozens of ways that happens.  The wind and critters can carry the spores but most likely, this mushroom found its way to her place in that lovely mulch that she had so carefully spread about her plants.  While it makes the garden look nice, many things hide in those mulch bags.  Everything from weed seeds to snails can hitch a ride in the bag right to the garden spot.

  While I am not a fan of the Devil's Toadstools (local name), I have resigned myself to the fact that I shall never eradicate them from this property.   The place is far too big and I am far too old to go around with a shovel digging up stinky fungi.  They shall just run their course and do their thing.  Aside from the stench, they are rather pretty...in a weird sort of way.  Their bright red "fingers" stand out sharply against the brown pine needles or even green grass.  My whole beef with them is not even the fact that they smell terrible and I really should not lay the blame on the fungi.  Dogs seem to love to roll on the Devil's Toadstools and then they reek for days. Why?  Why in the world would something so smelly be so appealing that you would want to wear it as perfume??  Needless to say, I keep a close watch on old Mr. PJ.  Nope....no stinky dog is sleeping in my house!