Common Stinkhorn

This illustration of Phallus impudicus, or Stinkhorn mushroom, is one of 163 original watercolors in the four-volume manuscript for Illustrations of British Mycology, an 1847 work by Anna Maria Hussey and her sister, Frances Reed. The Stinkhorn is depicted with realistic color and detail, surrounded by plants and insects that provide scale and context. Hussey renders the ripe fruit and thorny vines of the blackberry, as well as the fly positioned atop the stinkhorn’s textured cap. The sisters’ botanically-accurate illustrations resisted conventions of ornamental, floral painting popular with Victorian women of their class.