Can Mushroom Scent Turn Women On?

On certain far-flung Pacific islands there is said to grow a mushroom that makes women go mad with sexual desire. In Hawaii and the high volcanic islands of Samoa, Tahiti, Rarotonga and the Marquesas in Polynesia they tell the Tale of the Mamalu o Wahine, or the Woman’s Mushroom.

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Women who encounter this mushroom in the forest and fall into ecstatic sexual fits of orgasmic proportion, recounts Rayne Grant. Only when the gods are pleased will they bring forth this magical plant and only if a woman leads a good and virtuous life will the gods reward her with this special treat just for her pleasure. Or so the legend goes. Women must be chaste, the gods pleased and hence Phallus multicolor far from rare across a wide swathe of the tropics. It has been reported from Australia, Guam, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Papua New Guinea, Tobago, and Zaire as well as Hawaii. One of the commonly and not inappropriately called stinkhorns, the Yellow Netted Stinkhorn, P. multicolor is one of some 77 species spread over 21 genera found worldwide but especially in the tropics. Stalk-like structures emerge from the underground egg-shaped peridium, phallus-like and tipped with a slimy mass of vile-smelling spores. The stench attracts flies, which feed on the spore mass and so distribute the spores. Whether the scent of P. multicolor can turn women on has been questioned. Certainly it has not increased the popularity of women gardeners in Queensland. There it is regarded as a pest and possibly poisonous. Common on wood and wood chip mulch, local health authorities advise that the scent attracts dogs and possibly cats; small dogs have been poisoned. While the toxins remain unknown they are gastro-irritants. Seek urgent medical attention for any ingestion, ominously instructs Queensland Health Yet elsewhere mycologists report favourably on other related stinkhorns, maintaining they are nonpoisonous and saprophytic. The peridium of the Elegant Stinkhorn, Mutinus elegans, considered a good edible mushroom, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation, although they advise caution as it closely resembles the “egg” stage of deadly amanitas. It is sometimes available canned at Asia groceries. Gardeners find it common in landscape mulches. Phallus indusiata, the Chinese “bamboo fungus,” is reportedly eaten as a food in southwestern China after the foul-smelling cap is removed. So is it true that an “orgasmic mushroom can give women an ‘earth-shattering’ experience,” as a Brit tabloid recently claimed? “Yes! It’s true, the world’s naughtiest fungus has a very erotic effect on up to half of ladies,” said The Daily Mirror. Alas, slightly more diligent research would have revealed other, perhaps more reliable sources, disagree with that assessment. The original and it appears only study ever conducted on the alleged aphrodisiacal properties of P. multicolor were reported in 2001 in The International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms, a not exactly prominent publication. Just six of 16 women reportedly had # after sniffing the fruiting body. All 20 men involved considered the smell “absolutely disgusting.” The respected web site Snopes.com thus brings in a verdict of unproven. A single, decade-old study in a minor journal that has not been replicated or vetted by other researchers in the scientific community.

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