Common stinkhorn or Dog stinkhorn

At the egg stage it's a white or cream ball 4-6 cm across with a thick, slimy skin. When mature, it has a bell-shaped cap 3-5 cm tall, coated in dark olive or greenish-brown slimy gleba with a honeycomb pattern.

There's no separate cap. The top of the stem is pointed, orange-red and finely bumpy, and only the tip is covered in sticky, shiny dark olive slime that carries the spores. Once flies have eaten it, the tip shows bright orange.

Instead of gills or pores, the cap is coated in slimy gleba. The tiny spores are carried off by flies drawn to the powerful carrion smell, a specialised way of spreading that the whole stinkhorn family uses.

There are no gills or pores: the spores are carried in the olive slime at the tip. There's no ordinary spore print; the spores are pale yellow in mass.

The stem is 12-22 cm tall and 2-4 cm thick, white or cream, cylindrical and hollow. Its surface is spongy, delicate and brittle. It emerges from the egg in just 2-4 hours, one of the fastest growth rates of any fungus.

The stem is 6 to 15 cm tall and about 1 cm thick, cylindrical, hollow, spongy and pitted like expanded polystyrene, white, pale yellow or pale orange, often curved and fragile.

At the base the remains of the egg form a white sac (volva) with white mycelial cords. The young fungus looks like a white or yellowish egg 2 to 3 cm across, half buried in leaf litter.

In the egg, the flesh is white and firm, with a greenish gelatinous layer under the skin and a delicate taste. In the mature mushroom it's spongy, brittle and white. It doesn't change colour when cut.

The stem walls are spongy like polystyrene, whitish to pale orange. Inside the egg, a layer of clear jelly lies under the skin.

A young egg smells faint, barely mushroomy, with a hint of radish. The mature mushroom smells extremely strong and unpleasant, like carrion or rotting meat. The smell carries tens of metres and draws the flies that spread the spores.

The smell is unpleasant and carrion-like, but much weaker than the common stinkhorn's.