today, we walked the prunus-petai trail. nah, betty and i had to wait more than thirty minutes for 'the bendemeer gang' who were caught in a massive traffic jam, no thanks to the new leonie flyover.
as we were walking back, nah pointed to a plant on the track and exclaimed 'mushroom'. i looked and thought someone had placed a protective covering over the plant. the mushroom was enclosed in a lacy, pink, net-like veil. it reminds me of roti jala. on closer examination, we found a lot of tiny flies and small insects inside the net.
two caucasian lady joggers who joined us to admire the netted stinkhorn provided us with more information on it. one of them said that she had come across a similar stinkhorn, with a larger pink veil at the beginning of the prunus trail. the other enlightened us on the name and explained that the stink attracts insects to the mushroom. some sources say that you will smell the stinkhorn before you see it. we actually did not get a whiff of anything.
"their method of reproduction is different than most mushrooms, which use the air to spread their spores. stinkhorns instead produce a sticky spore mass on their tip which has an odor of carrion, dung, or other things that attract flies. the flies land on the stinkhorn and in doing so collect the spore mass on their legs and carry it to other locations."
3 comments:
The Lornie Flyover is only good for people like me who travel there in the afternoon or coming back towards Bt Timah in evening. Anyway, don't be surprised if they put up an ERP gantry there soon.
My son says, he has seen one of these mushrooms at the Macritchie outside their kayak shed.
surprisingly, this veiled lady mushroom is edible and the chinese (in china) make it into a soup. but, most of the pictures i see on the internet show a white veil, not a pink one.
What a fabulous looking fungus!
Post a Comment