Identification: Lantern Stinkhorn (Lysurus Mokusin)

Just had my first experience with a Lantern Stinkhorn, lucky me. I just thought the neighbor's dog had poopied somewhere in my yard. I was very mystified at first, and then looked up stinky plants on the Internet. I dug it up right away and put it in a ziplock, where it can still be smelled from several feet away. It sounds like it's not rare. After I dug it up I thought, "Oh, no! What if this is something rare and I just killed it!" My question is, how common are these things in Florida? Thanks. lisa

 

I'd imagine that they are common in Fl. You didn't kill it! Picking a mushroom is like picking an apple off a tree, you don't kill the spore (seed) producing part of the plant. Even if you carefully dug it up, there is likely some mycelium (roots of the mushroom) completely intact, waiting for the right conditions to produce some fruiting bodies (mushrooms), and its likely that some fly's were attracted to the smell and landed on it, carring off the spores to deposit them somewhere else, where they could produce more mycelium.

Did you snap a shot before getting rid of it? If so, we'd love to see it.

 

I didn't kill it? Darn! Just kidding. No, I didn't get a picture. It was so weird looking, I thought it was some fruit that a squirrel had tried to bury. It was actually in an upside down "V" shape and it seemed like both ends were in the ground. I honestly did not realize it was some kind of plant until I began to dig. The next one that comes up I'll be sure to get a picture of. Thanks for the reply. ~l