Red stinkhorns are a group of fungi known for their reddish-pink color, phallic or tentacle-like shapes, and an unmistakable smell of rotting flesh. If you’ve found one in your yard, you’re likely looking at a species like the elegant stinkhorn (Mutinus elegans), which is pink to orange with a brown cap, or possibly a column stinkhorn (Clathrus columnatus), which has orange-pink branching arms. They’re not considered poisonous to humans, they won’t harm your plants, and they’ll disappear on their own within days.
What Red Stinkhorns Look Like
Several species get called “red stinkhorn,” and they share a few traits: vivid reddish, pink, or orange coloring, a slimy tip coated in dark spore material, and a shape that doesn’t look like a typical mushroom. The elegant stinkhorn grows as a single tapered stalk, pink to orange, topped with a brownish slime-covered cap that isn’t distinct or separate the way a button mushroom’s cap would be. The column stinkhorn, sometimes called the octopus stinkhorn, looks more architectural, with two or more orange-pink arms joined at the top, sometimes resembling a pi symbol or a small cage.
Another species you might encounter is the starfish stinkhorn (Aseroe rubra), which splits into red tentacle-like arms radiating outward from a central disc. Despite the visual differences, all of these share the same basic biology: a slimy, spore-laden coating on their surfaces and a powerful stench designed to attract insects.
How They Grow So Fast
Stinkhorns start underground as egg-shaped structures, whitish to pink or purple, roughly the size of a golf ball. If you’ve ever dug one up while gardening, you may have mistaken it for some kind of seed pod. Cutting one open reveals the developing mushroom compressed inside, connected to the soil by a network of fungal threads.
The speed at which they emerge is genuinely remarkable. A stinkhorn can grow four to six inches per hour once it breaks out of its egg, and they’ve been documented generating enough force to crack through asphalt. One extension agent placed an immature egg in a plastic container overnight and found a fully formed pale red stinkhorn by morning. The entire above-ground life of the mushroom is short. They appear fast, do their reproductive work, and collapse within a few days.
Why They Smell Like Rotting Meat
The stench is the whole point. The dark, slimy coating on the tip of a stinkhorn (called the gleba) contains the fungus’s spores, and the smell is what recruits insects to carry those spores away. The dominant chemical responsible is dimethyl trisulfide, part of a family of sulfur compounds that also show up in decaying animal tissue. Other fragrant compounds like linalool and trans-ocimene are mixed in as well. Warm temperatures make the smell stronger and more effective.
Flies, carrion beetles, and slugs land on the slime, feed on it, and leave with spores stuck to their bodies. It’s a remarkably effective system. Unlike mushrooms that release spores into the wind, stinkhorns outsource the job to insects that are already programmed to seek out the smell of decay. The flies sometimes even lay eggs on the slime, mistaking it for actual rotting meat.
Where They Show Up
Red stinkhorns are saprobic fungi, meaning they feed on decaying organic matter. They’re especially common in landscape mulch, wood chip beds, and areas with buried rotting wood or leaf litter. If your yard has a thick layer of hardwood mulch, that’s prime stinkhorn habitat. They also appear in garden beds with rich, organic soil and occasionally in lawns where tree roots or stumps are decomposing underground.
The fungal network lives in the soil year-round, quietly breaking down dead plant material. You only see the stinkhorn itself when conditions are right for reproduction, typically during warm, humid weather. The mushroom is just the reproductive structure of a much larger organism hidden below the surface.
Are They Toxic to People or Pets?
No human fatalities have ever been recorded from eating stinkhorn fungi. All commonly encountered stinkhorn species are considered non-toxic, and in some cultures, the immature eggs are actually eaten as food. That said, the smell alone is usually enough to keep most people and animals from taking a bite.
Dogs are a different concern. There is unpublished veterinary evidence suggesting that some dogs who eat stinkhorns develop symptoms of stomach irritation and possible nervous system effects. The column stinkhorn (Clathrus columnatus) specifically has reports of causing poisoning in pigs. So while these mushrooms won’t harm you, it’s reasonable to keep pets from eating them, particularly since identifying fungi to the exact species level is difficult even for experienced foragers.
Getting Rid of Them
The most effective approach is simply picking them and throwing them in the trash. Stinkhorns are short-lived and will disappear on their own quite rapidly, but removing them by hand eliminates the smell faster and reduces the number of spores that get dispersed around your yard. If you can catch them in the egg stage before they emerge, even better. Gardeners often find the eggs while digging, and removing them at that point prevents the smell entirely.
There are no fungicides labeled or effective for stinkhorn control. The fungal network in the soil is too extensive to eliminate with chemicals, and it’s actually beneficial: it’s breaking down organic matter and recycling nutrients back into your soil. Reducing the depth of your mulch layer or switching to inorganic ground cover like gravel can make the area less hospitable, but as long as there’s decaying organic material in the ground, stinkhorns may reappear. Most people find that once they understand what they’re looking at, the occasional stinkhorn is more of a curiosity than a real nuisance.