Clathrus archeri is commonly
known as octopus stinkhorn, or devil's fingers, is a fungus indigenous to
Australia and New Zealand, and an introduced species in Europe, North America
and Asia. In Britain this amazing fungus is usually known as Devil's Fingers,
and in parts of the USA it is referred to as the Octopus Fungus. This crazy
organism looks better suited to life on Proteus than Earth the fungal “egg”
opens, unleashing four to eight blood-red arms. A large, starfish-like fruit-body
whose 4 to 8 arched red arms are coated with a smelly gleba on the upper
surface, the mature fruit-body is typically 20cm across with arms arching to
10cm in height. Devils Finger habitually is a saprobic and mainly found in leaf
litter under trees and shrubs; also increasingly on bark mulch in parks and
gardens.
The young fungus erupts from a
sub-erumpent egg by forming into four to seven elongated slender arms originally
erect and attached at the top. After that arms unfold to reveal a pinkish-red
interior covered with a dark-olive spore-containing gleba. Therefore, at the
time of maturity it smells like putrid flesh. Before rupturing the ball or egg
of Clathrus archeri is typically 2 to 3cm in diameter. The bright red color
makes this remarkable species very easy to identify; however, it is a
relatively rare find in Britain and mainly found in the south of England and in
the Channel Islands.
Devil’s Finger is not proven to
be toxic, but it is treated as suspect, can tolerate the stench it's a risky
snack. In fact the eggs of numerous stinkhorns are edible, but there are no archives
of fights having taken place over these delicacies as there surely are over
truffles, morels and some kinds of edible boletes. The arms of Devil's Fingers emerge vertically
and spread out, making the gleba accessible to insects; it is by this means
that the spores are distributed. In the recent times Devil’s fingers, with
white tentacles or arms has been witnessed in the Shola Forests of Western
Ghats, Kerala, India.
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