We were quietly having our morning tea with the sound of continuous rain beating down on our roof and the rabble of the early morning birds, when we were suddenly startled by the sound of the phone going off.  It was 7am…from past experience, we only received early phone calls for medical call-outs.  I picked up the phone and I recognised the voice of a guy that I knew from Punta Gorda.  He was obviously very agitated and addressed me formerly as “doctor.”  In my mind, I was thinking,” Yup…it’s a medical call.”  Then he garbled on about trying frantically to find my phone number on the Internet.  I acknowledged his efforts with some sort of noise indicating encouragement as I anticipated an ailment.

And, then out of the blue he blurted out,” I think I found a Stinkhorn Mushroom!”

I blanked out. Blinked twice.  Brain activity stopped for a millisecond as I processed this statement.

I glanced up at the clock…it was 7.05am.  In my mind I was thinking,” This guy is phoning me at 7 in the morning to tell me that he has spotted a mushroom in town?”

I don’t think that he even realised that I was taken aback by his statement and went into a frenzy with a description about a potrusion and a net-like thing.  He enthusiastically asked,”which part can you eat?” and, “how do I cook it?” and, “Oh, do the Chinese like to eat it…yes I ‘ve heard it’s rather gelatinous…”

I quickly recovered from my surprise and politely corroborated with his description of the Stinkhorn, giving him helpful pointers on the harvesting of the edible mushroom.  Afterwards, I put the phone down calmly and then guffawed silently at Gnome who had heard the whole conversation.

Gnome shrugged his shoulders and said nonchalantly, “I guess this is the emergency mushroom hot-line.”

Interestingly enough, in the last few days we have had many sightings of the Stinkhorn Mushroom on our farm.  Here are some pictures of this unusual looking fungus.

If you would like to read more about this mushroom, Gnome has written an engaging and humourous essay in the library on The Stinkhorn.

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