As weeds will grow with flowers, the unsightly with the beautiful, so do we meet with here much more abundantly that extraordinary and offensive production the stinking phallus (phallus impudicus). They do not dwell near each other, however; this being found in the month of June on many of our hedge-banks. The smell it discharges has been thought to be like that arising from some decayed animal substance; but it is of a much more subtle kind, as if the animal fetor had been volatilized by carbonate of ammonia. Many persons in their country walks, at this period of the year, must have been occasionally surprised by a sudden disagreeable smell of this nature, and probably concluded that it proceeded from some dead animal, when most likely it was produced by this fungus: yet to find it is not always an easy matter; for the odor is so diffused on all sides, that it rather leads us astray from the object than aids our search, the plant being hidden frequently in the depth of the hedge. I have at times found it by watching the flight of the flies, which are attracted by its fetor. This strong smell is supposed to reside in the green gelatinous substance which is attached to the cell of the pileus; but the odor is at times discharged by this phallus, before the stem has arisen from the egglike wrapper by which it is inclosed. This is a very unpleasant plant to delineate, as its odor, when in a room, is so very offensive, that few persons would willingly tolerate its presence; and its growth is so rapid in an increased temperature, that the form and appearance soon become changed. The seed is supposed to reside in the cells of the pileus, and the gelatinous matter which we find on its summit; and on this, and every part of the plant, slugs of various kinds are commonly found feeding, which, retiring to their holes in the earth, from the contents of their stomachs probably propagate this phallus. That many of our agarics, and those boleti which have central stems, are so diffused around by the agency of these creatures, it is reasonable to conclude for it is a very usual thing to find the gills of these plants, in which the seed resides, so entirely eaten away by slugs as to have no remains perceptible, except a little of the flesh and the outer skin; and they prefer those plants which are somewhat advanced in age, and in which we suppose the seminal matter to be more perfected.