Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus)
Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus)
Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) is a widespread saprotrophic fungus found across woodlands, gardens, and mulched beds throughout Europe, North America, Asia, and beyond. It erupts from a buried egg-like structure into a tall, white-stalked fruiting body crowned with an olive-black spore mass — reaching full height in under two hours. Its biology, chemistry, and five centuries of documented folk medicine make it one of the most scientifically interesting common fungi in the temperate world.
Phallus impudicus L. — Phallaceae — Phallales — Index Fungorum ID: 245934
Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) is one of the most immediately recognisable fungi in the world and one of the least understood scientifically. First formally described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 — making it among the earliest fungi named under the binomial system — it has been used in folk medicine across Baltic, Slavic, and Central European traditions for at least five centuries, applied externally for wounds and internally for gout, ulcers, and kidney disease. Modern research has validated some of these applications at the animal and cell-culture level, identified a unique compound in its volatile chemistry not found in any other edible fungus, and demonstrated antiviral activity against influenza strains including H5N1 that exceeded the reference drug Tamiflu in cell culture assays. None of this has made it into human clinical trials yet. This guide covers what is known, what is not, and what the liquid culture can realistically achieve.
Interested in this species? Out-Grow carries a liquid culture.
Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) Liquid CultureWhat Is Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus)?
The Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) is a saprotrophic basidiomycete — a wood-debris decomposer that requires no living host, no mycorrhizal partner tree, and no symbiotic relationship to complete its lifecycle. It colonises dead organic matter in soil, particularly buried rotting wood, wood chip mulch, and deep leaf litter. This saprotrophic lifestyle is the key reason it so frequently appears in garden beds and landscaped areas: it is doing exactly what it evolved to do, and the enriched wood-chip mulch of a suburban garden is an ideal substrate.
The name impudicus — Latin for "shameless" or "immodest" — is Linnaeus's characteristically direct reference to the mature fruiting body's unmistakable morphology. The genus name Phallus predates Linnaeus and was in use among European herbalists long before formal taxonomy. The species is the type species of the genus Phallus and, by extension, of the entire family Phallaceae — which means every classification decision made about this species has ripple effects across the order Phallales.
What distinguishes the Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) biologically from almost every other common fungus is its spore dispersal strategy. Rather than releasing spores into wind currents as most fungi do, it produces its spores embedded in a foul-smelling, adhesive, olive-black slime called the gleba. The gleba mimics the smell of carrion — primarily through dimethyl disulfide and dimethyl trisulfide — attracting flies that consume it, pass the spores through their digestive tracts, and deposit them elsewhere in their faeces. This insect-mediated gut dispersal is a biochemically sophisticated ecological strategy that has been selected for over evolutionary time.
How Is Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) Classified?
| Rank | Name |
|---|---|
| Kingdom | Fungi |
| Phylum | Basidiomycota |
| Class | Agaricomycetes |
| Subclass | Phallomycetidae (established Hosaka et al. 2006) |
| Order | Phallales |
| Family | Phallaceae |
| Genus | Phallus |
| Species | Phallus impudicus L. (1753) |
| Index Fungorum / MycoBank | ID 245934 · NCBI Taxonomy ID: 146781 |
Phallus impudicus was described by Linnaeus in Species Plantarum 2:1178 (1753) and sanctioned by Persoon in Synopsis Methodica Fungorum (1801), making it one of the earliest properly established fungal names in the post-Linnaean system. The subclass Phallomycetidae was formally established only in 2006 by Hosaka et al., using a seven-locus phylogenetic dataset (nuc-SSU, nuc-LSU, mt-SSU, ATP6, RPB2, TEF1-α, ITS) that finally resolved the stinkhorns as a monophyletic, well-supported clade — ending their previous assignment to the artificial "Gasteromycetes," a wastebasket grouping now recognised as polyphyletic.
A notable variety exists: Phallus impudicus var. togatus (Kalchbr.) Cooke, which bears a developed indusium — a lacy skirt-like structure hanging beneath the cap, superficially resembling the tropical netted stinkhorn (Phallus indusiatus). The veiled variety is rare in western Europe and has been flagged as a candidate for Global Fungal Red List assessment. Index Fungorum now treats all Dictyophora names as synonyms of Phallus, following the molecular evidence that indusium presence is not phylogenetically meaningful at the generic level.
How Do You Identify Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus)?
Three Developmental Stages
Egg Stage
Whitish to pinkish, ovoid, 4–6 cm tall × 3–5 cm wide; partly or fully subterranean. Outer surface thick, rubbery-gelatinous (the peridium). When cut open: three concentric layers visible — white gelatinous outer layer, olive-green inner gleba, and white spongy inner receptaculum. Tethered at base by a white mycelial cord. Odourless or nearly so. This is the edible stage.
Emergence
The stipe elongates at approximately 5 mm per minute — completing emergence to full height in 1.5–3 hours. This is driven by osmotic water uptake (turgor pressure) causing pre-formed cells to elongate, not new cell division. The peridium ruptures at the apex; the remains form the lobed volva at the stipe base. Odour intensifies rapidly during this phase.
Mature Fruiting Body
10–30 cm tall; white hollow spongy stipe (2–3.5 cm diameter); conical to thimble-shaped cap (3–6 cm tall) with a strongly reticulate (honeycomb-patterned) surface beneath the gleba; an olive-black adhesive gleba covers the cap initially; small apical pore at cap tip. Gleba rapidly removed by flies, revealing the white reticulate pileus surface beneath.
Key Morphological Parameters
Lookalike Species
Phallus hadriani — Dune Stinkhorn
The closest lookalike at both egg and mature stage. Distinguished by a purple-pink volva (not white) — the key field character. Smaller overall; more associated with sandy, coastal, and dune habitats. Found where range overlaps with P. impudicus; volva colour is the only reliable separator.
Mutinus caninus — Dog Stinkhorn
Edible at egg stage. Much smaller (6–12 cm at maturity); stipe orange-pink; cap not differentiated from stipe — there is no distinct pileus. Weaker odour. No risk of confusion once mature; egg stage separation requires cutting open to inspect interior structure.
Amanita spp. (eggs only)
The highest-stakes egg-stage confusion. Amanita eggs contain a fully formed miniature cap with gills when cut open — no olive-green gleba, no gelatinous intermediate layer. The olive-green interior of a stinkhorn egg immediately resolves any doubt. Never eat an uncut egg; always slice through it first.
Lycoperdon / Calvatia spp. (puffballs)
Edible when interior is pure white. Puffball interior is uniformly white and marshmallow-like throughout; no internal egg architecture, no olive-green gleba layer. The stinkhorn egg has a distinct layered structure visible immediately on cutting.
Where Does Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) Grow?
The Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) is one of the most geographically widespread macrofungi on Earth. Its saprotrophic wood-debris ecology requires nothing beyond buried rotting organic matter, which is available in virtually every terrestrial biome outside deserts and arctic zones. Confirmed distribution spans Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, Australasia, South America, and the Caribbean.
| Region | Distribution Notes |
|---|---|
| Europe | Ubiquitous continent-wide; Scandinavia to Mediterranean; UK, Ireland, virtually every European nation. Peak fruiting July–October. |
| North America | Widely distributed; P. ravenelii tends to predominate in eastern U.S.; P. impudicus more common in western regions. Summer to late autumn. |
| Asia | China (multiple provinces including Anhui, Guangdong, Hainan, Shanxi), Japan, India, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Nepal, Georgia, Kazakhstan. Under-forest cultivation practiced in Guizhou Province; harvest October–November. |
| Africa | Algeria, Morocco, South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Liberia. |
| Australasia | Australia (Northern Territory, Queensland), New Zealand. |
| South America / Caribbean | Brazil (multiple states), Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Guyana; Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico. |
Within any given landscape, the Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) shows a strong preference for substrates rich in buried wood debris: deciduous and mixed woodland, wood chip and bark mulch in gardens and parks, soil adjacent to old stumps or buried rotting roots, and sandy soils with incorporated organic matter. The mycelium extends through soil as rhizomorphs — visible white cord-like networks documented by Boddy et al. — which allow the fungus to explore large volumes of substrate before concentrating resources into a fruiting body.
Can You Cultivate Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus)?
The Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) can be cultivated — and has been, commercially, in China and on record in Russian patents. This is important to state clearly because several popular web sources claim the species cannot be cultivated. The correct position is more nuanced: outdoor and semi-controlled fruiting body production on wood-based substrates is documented in peer-reviewed literature, while reliable indoor grow-room production comparable to oyster mushroom block cultivation has not been established in any peer-reviewed publication.
What Is Documented (Peer-Reviewed)
A Russian patent (RU2386239C2) describes cultivation on sawdust and mulch substrates in outdoor beds for fruiting body production — the earliest documented protocol for this species. A 2024 Chinese study explicitly sources P. impudicus fruiting bodies from an "under-forest planting field" in Guizhou Province, with harvest occurring in October–November — indicating semi-commercial under-forest cultivation is an active, practiced system in that region. A second 2024 study describes cultivating the species following Gastrodia elata cultivation on modified soil beds, observing fruiting body production as part of a traditional species-rotation practice.
Submerged Fermentation — The Best-Characterised Cultivation Pathway
Mycelial biomass production in liquid culture is the most rigorously documented cultivation form for the Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus). Razin et al. (2023) optimised submerged cultivation in a 1,750 mL bioreactor using factorial regression analysis, establishing the following optimal parameters:
A second key study (Buko/Vyacheslav et al. 2019) demonstrated that optimising medium composition increased mycelial biomass yield 1.3-fold and polysaccharide content 1.5–1.7-fold versus unoptimised controls. The polysaccharides extracted from this cultivated mycelium showed immunomodulating properties in vitro and in streptozotocin-diabetic rats, and a 10% polysaccharide ointment accelerated wound healing 1.8× faster than control in a rat full-thickness wound model — validating cultivated mycelium as a chemically meaningful source material for pharmacological research.
Agar Culture Behaviour
No peer-reviewed study has characterised agar colony growth rates for P. impudicus specifically — this is a documented gap in the literature. The following is vendor-reported from Out-Grow's culture plate product page, included here with that attribution.
What Out-Grow's Liquid Culture Is For
Out-Grow's Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) liquid culture provides a viable, actively growing suspension of P. impudicus mycelium — optimised for inoculation of sterilised grain or MEA. Its primary applications are mycelial biomass production for polysaccharide or bioactive compound extraction (peer-reviewed support: Razin 2023, Buko 2019), agar expansion and culture banking, spawn production for outdoor sawdust or woodchip bed cultivation, and research use including antiviral extract preparation and wound healing compound isolation.
The liquid culture will not produce fruiting bodies directly. Fruiting requires outdoor or semi-controlled substrate beds with appropriate environmental triggers (temperature cycling, moisture variation) — no peer-reviewed indoor fruiting protocol currently exists for this species. Strict sterile technique is especially important: P. impudicus's long lag phase (up to 72 hours before visible mycelial growth) and slow subsequent growth rate create a significant window for contamination by Trichoderma spp. and bacteria before the culture establishes.
This species is of unique significance for mycology research — its volatile chemistry, antiviral activity, wound healing properties, and folk medicine history make it one of the more pharmacologically interesting saprotrophic fungi in the temperate world. The liquid culture is the practical starting point for any serious study of this organism.
What Bioactive Compounds Does Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) Contain?
The chemistry of Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) divides into two distinct domains: its volatile compounds — the molecules responsible for its extraordinary odour and a growing area of analytical interest — and its non-volatile bioactives, including polysaccharides, phenolics, and a polysaccharide fraction with documented wound-healing and immunomodulating properties.
Volatile Chemistry — 102 Compounds Characterised
A 2024 GC-MS study (Liu et al., Food Chemistry X) identified 102 volatile compounds from P. impudicus fruiting bodies across four developmental stages using headspace solid-phase microextraction. 88 of these 102 volatiles were below detection at the bud stage and only appeared after peridium rupture — meaning volatile synthesis is triggered by the mechanical event of egg-cracking, not by gradual accumulation. The four developmental stages separated completely in principal component analysis, with entirely distinct volatile profiles.
| Compound | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Dimethyl disulfide | Primary odorant (carrion odour) | Reaches maximum at maturity; present from shell-cracking; absent in over-ripe specimens |
| Dimethyl trisulfide | Primary odorant (carrion odour) | Co-primary with dimethyl disulfide; mimics decomposing flesh for fly attraction |
| 2-Cyano-2-ethyl-butyramide (2,4-decenol) | Unknown biological role | Reportedly unique to P. impudicus among edible fungi; potential chemotaxonomic marker; highest relative content at maturity |
| 6-Undecanol | Aroma contributor | High relative content across stages |
| α-Terpinen-7-al, methyl geraniate, (E,E)-2,4-decadienal | Aroma profile contributors | Multiple contributors to full scent profile alongside sulfide compounds |
| Trans-anethole, citronellal, verbenone | Minor aroma contributors | Confirmed by GC-MS; stage-variable concentrations |
β-Glucans (Polysaccharides)
Primary immunostimulatory compounds in both fruiting body and cultivated mycelium. Higher molecular weight fractions show greater immunomodulatory activity. Extracted from optimised mycelium culture: 1.5–1.7-fold increase in polysaccharide content vs unoptimised medium (Buko 2019). Demonstrated immunomodulation in vitro and in streptozotocin-diabetic rats.
Polysaccharide PL-2
Isolated from fruiting body juice. Demonstrated antithrombogenic activity — inhibits pathological platelet aggregation in vitro. The specific structural characterisation of PL-2 is documented in Baltic ethnopharmacological literature; the platelet aggregation inhibition finding has not been replicated in published animal or human studies.
Antiviral Extracts (vs H3N2 and H5N1)
Aqueous and ethanol extracts from fruiting bodies showed antiviral activity against influenza A/Aichi/2/68 (H3N2) and avian A/chicken/Kurgan/05/2005 (H5N1) in MDCK cell culture. Extracts from cultivated mycelium also showed high efficacy. Combined P. impudicus + Lycoperdon pyriforme extracts exceeded Tamiflu (oseltamivir) activity against H5N1 at the concentrations tested. Evidence quality: in vitro cell culture only; mechanism unknown; no in vivo data.
Wound Healing Polysaccharide Ointment
10% polysaccharide ointment from cultivated mycelium: wound healing 1.8× faster than control in rat full-thickness skin wound model. Accelerated epithelialisation, granulation tissue maturation, and dermis recovery (Buko 2019). Separately, a hydrogel containing ethanolic extract accelerated wound desquamation and stimulated fibroblast proliferation with increased DNA and collagen synthesis in STZ-diabetic rats (Zakrzeska 2024).
Anti-inflammatory / Analgesic / Gastroprotective Tincture
40% ethanol tincture at 0.3 mL/kg in rats: anti-ulcer effect against aspirin-induced gastric damage; anti-inflammatory on carrageenan oedema model; pronounced analgesic effect on acetic acid writhing model. No effect on zymosan oedema, suggesting prostaglandin-pathway dominance. All findings at animal model level.
Phenolic Compounds
Total phenolic content 40.98–52.10 µmol/g; increases with hot-air drying. Amino acids and organic acids identified by GC-MS in ethanolic extract (Zakrzeska et al. 2024). Specific phenolic compounds not yet fully characterised at the individual compound level for this species.
Reprotoxic Signal (Alcohol Extract)
Solek et al. 2021: alcohol extract applied to isolated spermatogenic cells caused decreased metabolic activity, p53/p21-mediated cell cycle arrest, telomere shortening, and apoptosis induction. This is an in vitro signal on isolated cells at unspecified concentrations — not a demonstrated human fertility risk. No in vivo reprotoxicity study has been published. Requires dose-response characterisation before any safety conclusions can be drawn.
Antioxidant / Hypoglycaemic Activity
Alloxan-induced diabetic rat model: antioxidant and hypoglycaemic potential reported (Khan et al. 2020). Separately, the STZ-diabetic wound healing study (Zakrzeska 2024) confirmed reduced SOD activity and TBARS vs control in treated animals, consistent with antioxidant activity in a diabetic tissue context.
Is Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) Safe?
The Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) is not classified as poisonous by any major mycological authority. No toxic alkaloids, amatoxins, phallotoxins, orellanine, or other defined mycotoxins have been characterised from this species. The mature fruiting body is not eaten for culinary purposes not because of toxicity, but because of its extreme and persistent odour and the unpleasant texture of the gleba once mature.
The egg stage has a documented culinary history in France, Germany, and Eastern Europe. Descriptions of raw egg-stage flesh as mild and hazelnut-like in flavour are present in mycological literature; traditional preparations include pickling, frying, and tincture-making. Dogs ingesting stinkhorn specimens have been associated with gastric irritation in some veterinary reports, though this appears dose- and individual-dependent rather than evidence of a systemic toxin.
Safe handling note: the odour of the mature gleba is intensely persistent on skin and clothing. Gloves are recommended for handling mature specimens in any cultivation or identification context. No contact dermatitis from gleba exposure is documented in the available literature, though individual sensitivity varies.
What Makes Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) Remarkable?
The World's Fastest-Growing Mushroom — and Why It's Not What You Think
The Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) holds a Guinness Book of Records distinction as the fastest-growing mushroom in the world, expanding at approximately 5 mm per minute and reaching full height from a cracked egg in 1.5–3 hours. The mechanism is not growth in any conventional biological sense. No new cells are being created during emergence. Instead, the entire complement of stipe cells is pre-formed inside the egg at compressed scale, and emergence is driven entirely by osmotic water uptake (turgor pressure) causing those existing cells to elongate rapidly — a phenomenon sometimes called "cellular origami." All the biomass investment happens during the slow mycelial and egg stage; the dramatic emergence simply deploys pre-assembled material in a single burst. The turgor pressure generated is sufficient to rupture the peridium cleanly and has been documented pushing through compacted substrates; reports of stinkhorns breaching asphalt paving appear in the fungal biomechanics literature as extreme examples of turgor-driven mechanical force.
A Chemical Arms Race with Flies — and One Unique Compound
The fly-mediated spore dispersal system of the Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) is an example of convergent evolution with animal-pollinated plants and dung fungi. The gleba's organosulfur volatile profile — dominated by dimethyl disulfide and dimethyl trisulfide — is not random: it biochemically mimics the volatiles produced by decomposing animal protein, the precise olfactory signal that carrion-feeding Diptera have evolved to detect and follow. The specificity of this mixture has been selected for over evolutionary time against the background noise of forest volatiles. The 2024 GC-MS study (Liu et al.) identified 102 volatiles in the developing fruiting body, including a compound — 2-cyano-2-ethyl-butyramide — reportedly not found in any other edible fungal species. Its biological role in the organism is unknown: it may be a defensive compound, an ecological signal, a byproduct of gleba breakdown, or something else entirely. As a potential chemotaxonomic marker for P. impudicus, it represents an open research question that no competitor page has acknowledged.
Five Centuries of Documented Folk Medicine
The Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) has one of the richest documented folk medicine traditions of any European fungus, traceable in written records back at least five centuries. Baltic and Slavic traditions used alcoholic tinctures of egg-stage fruiting bodies for abdominal pain, kidney disease, gout, bronchial asthma, tuberculosis, bedsores, and burns. Austria knew it as Podagraschwamm — the "podagra mushroom" — specifically for gout treatment. Ukrainians documented tinctures and ointments for wound treatment. The species was reportedly dedicated by ancient Romans to Ceres and featured in medieval European "amorous liquors" — reflecting its morphology more than pharmacology, but establishing a deep cultural footprint that modern research is now beginning to catch up with. The 2019 wound-healing ointment data and the 2024 antiviral data represent the first experimental validation of traditional applications that were documented centuries before any pharmacological framework existed to explain them.
The Henrietta Darwin Stinkhorn Incident
Mycology's most entertainingly Victorian anecdote involves Charles Darwin's daughter Henrietta ("Etty"), preserved in her niece Gwen Raverat's family memoir Period Piece (1952). According to Raverat, Etty would venture into the woods around Down House armed with a basket and a pointed stick to locate and destroy stinkhorn fruiting bodies, burning them privately to protect the moral character of village women from their corrupting influence. The story is almost certainly embellished in the family retelling, but Henrietta Darwin's documented concern with stinkhorns at Down House is attested in Darwin family correspondence, and it accurately captures Victorian society's reaction to the species — which was considered deeply objectionable in polite company precisely because it was so immediately, unavoidably, and publically phallic. The scientific name impudicus — "shameless" — anticipates the Victorian reaction by more than a century.
Frequently Asked Questions About Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus)
What is growing in my garden that looks like a white egg and smells terrible?
Almost certainly a Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus). The egg stage emerges from soil or mulch as a white to pinkish ovoid structure, then rapidly extends into a tall white-stalked fruiting body with a dark olive-green slimy cap — reaching full height in under two hours. The cadaverous odour is produced by dimethyl disulfide and dimethyl trisulfide in the olive-black spore mass (gleba) on the cap. It is not poisonous; it is doing exactly what it evolved to do — decomposing the buried wood debris in your mulch. Removing and composting it will not prevent future fruiting; the mycelium network in the substrate must be exhausted or the substrate removed to stop recurrence.
Is Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) edible?
The egg stage is edible and consumed in France, Germany, and Eastern Europe, described as mild with a faint hazelnut flavour. Always cut any unidentified egg-shaped fungus in half before eating — a stinkhorn egg has an olive-green inner gleba layer and a layered internal structure; an Amanita egg (which includes deadly species) reveals a miniature mushroom with gills. The mature fruiting body after emergence is avoided for culinary use because of its extreme odour and unpleasant texture — not because it is poisonous.
What health benefits does Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) have?
No human clinical trials or controlled human studies have been published for Phallus impudicus or any compound isolated from it. All current evidence is at the animal model or cell-culture level. Documented preclinical findings include: wound healing 1.8× faster than control with a 10% polysaccharide ointment in rats; anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects in rat models; antiviral activity against influenza H3N2 and H5N1 in cell culture (exceeding Tamiflu at concentrations tested); and antioxidant and hypoglycaemic activity in diabetic rat models. Traditional use across European folk medicine spans five centuries but predates any pharmacological validation. All health claims should be understood as preliminary evidence requiring human trial confirmation.
Can you cultivate Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus)?
Yes — outdoor and semi-controlled cultivation producing fruiting bodies is documented in Chinese under-forest planting systems and described in Russian patents. Mycelial biomass production in submerged liquid culture is the most rigorously characterised pathway, with peer-reviewed optimised protocols (Razin 2023; Buko 2019) producing polysaccharide-rich mycelium for research and pharmaceutical applications. No peer-reviewed indoor grow-room fruiting protocol comparable to oyster mushroom block cultivation currently exists for this species.
Why does Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) grow so fast?
The Guinness-record expansion rate of approximately 5 mm per minute is not conventional growth — no new cells are created during emergence. Instead, all stipe cells are pre-formed at compressed scale inside the egg, and the expansion event is driven entirely by osmotic water uptake (turgor pressure) causing those pre-existing cells to elongate rapidly. This "cellular origami" mechanism deploys pre-assembled biomass in a single burst, rather than building new tissue. The turgor pressure generated during emergence is sufficient to rupture the peridium and, in extreme cases, push through compacted substrates including asphalt.
What is a liquid culture used for in Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) research?
The liquid culture provides viable P. impudicus mycelium for mycelial biomass production (for polysaccharide extraction, antiviral extract preparation, or wound healing compound isolation), agar plate expansion and culture banking, spawn production for outdoor substrate beds, and research applications. Its primary documented value is as a source of pharmacologically active polysaccharides — the optimised submerged culture protocol produces mycelium with 1.5–1.7-fold higher polysaccharide content than unoptimised conditions. Liquid culture will not produce fruiting bodies without transfer to an outdoor substrate with appropriate environmental triggers.
Also available as a culture plate from Out-Grow.
Common Stinkhorn (Phallus impudicus) Culture Plate