When my coworker and I came back from lunch we discovered this orange tentacle thing growing out of the ground. I naturally thought It was a space octopus or something that had fallen to Earth and was planning to take over. I accidentally broke this specimen when I was poking it with my leatherman. You can see the spongy internal structure and some of the spore goo on the pieces. When I brought my camera down to take pictures of it I got a lot of funny looks from people as I knelt over it. I typed a description into Google and discovered it is a type of stinkhorn mushroom, Clathrus columnatus. Apparently the horrible smell of the things attracts flies to distribute the spores. The thing I found most amusing was not the space octopus idea but the fact that this thing was in a location where people are supposed to be aware of their surroundings but I'm the only one who noticed the bright orange tentacle growing out of the green grass.
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