Pseudocolus fusiformis
Stinkhorns! These foul-smelling fungi are popping up all over in the mulch around my property now that we are in the dog days of summer. They seem to love the hot and humid weather.
Stinkhorns are at once amazing and repulsive. They come up overnight, emerging from a little “egg” sac on the forest floor. They produce a gross, odiferous slime that attracts flies. The flies are tricked into thinking they are coming to a decaying animal, and as they crawl around in the ooze, they pick up spores. Off they go, moving the spores of the fungus to a new location. Ingenious!
The shapes of stinkhorns are also pretty notable. There is an entire group of them with a distincly phallic appearance. The ones coming up in my yard right now–stinky squids– look like crab claws in my opinion! They all have three orange “arms” branching out from a common stem. Other stinkhorns can look like dipsticks, wiffle balls or sea anemones. Who can’t appreciate a little humor in nature?
VIRGINIA WILDFLOWERS 
Some of these look like crab claws coming up out of the ground!
I have been totally engulfed by the stinky squid wood fungus. I was told that they would not last long but the started coming up in early spring and they are everywhere…even in my grass!! I have tried fungicide and it did not even slow them down HELP what can I do to get rid of them. I got so frustrated that I even tried digging them up! To no avail…
Why not let them be?
I just found something in my yard that someone said might be this. But what I found is open like a star and has several arms. It does not have a smell and looks carnivorous.