Dog Stinkhorn - Mutinus caninus

The elongated 'egg' is usually buried and hard to find.  The fruit-bodies that emerge are slender and tinged with orange, and the split 'egg' may be evident as a volva-like structure at the base.  The spore-mass or gleba is olive-black and smelling of rotten meat.  It attacts flies that then carry the spores away on their legs, revealing the orange honeycombed head underneath. 

The Common Stinkhorn, Phallus impudicus, is much larger and more smelly.

Photograph in habitat; note habitat and substrate

Rotten coniferous or deciduous wood, woody debris, stumps, woodchip; in parks, gardens, woodlands

July to early October

Status in Leicestershire and Rutland not known.