Body parts

We humans like to give names to living things that are descriptive of their appearance.

Here we have the fruiting bodies of three species of fungus named after human body parts. The common name of the black fungus to the right is dead man's fingers; the orange fungi in the centre were once known as Jew's ears but now more usually jelly ears. The white toadstool to the left is a stinkhorn, so named because it smells strongly of a dead corpse, the purpose being to attract the flies which feed on and disperse its stick spores. In this case it is not the common but the scientific name which describes its appearance, Phallus impudicus, meaning shameless penis.

As you can imagine such a name as this might offend those of a sensitive nature. Writing about life in Victorian Cambridge, Gwen Raverat (granddaughter of Charles Darwin) describes the 'sport' of Stinkhorn hunting:

In our native woods there grows a kind of toadstool, called in the vernacular The Stinkhorn, though in Latin it bears a grosser name. The name is justified, for the fungus can be hunted by the scent alone; and this was Aunt Etty's great invention. Armed with a basket and a pointed stick, and wearing special hunting cloak and gloves, she would sniff her way round the wood, pausing here and there, her nostrils twitching, when she caught a whiff of her prey; then at last, with a deadly pounce, she would fall upon her victim, and poke his putrid carcass into her basket. At the end of the day's sport, the catch was brought back and burnt in the deepest secrecy on the drawing-room fire, with the door locked; because of the morals of the maids.