Stinkhorns come in a variety of strange, but often beautiful, shapes. Many have bright colours.

These highly distinctive fungi don't have gills or pores. Instead, they produce a brown, spore-bearing slime called the gleba. This slime has a strong, unpleasant odour reminiscent of rotting meat or faeces. The smell attracts flies and other insects which feed on the slime and then carry the spores away with them, so that the spores are dispersed. Some dogs also find stinkhorns' foul odour irrestistible. Unfortunately, stinkhorns are poisonous and have caused the deaths of some Australian dogs.

Immature stinkhorns look like eggs. They don't smell and are non-toxic.