Lysurus mokusin
The lantern stinkhorn is distributed in low-elevation areas on this island, especially in areas with frequent human activity, such as school campuses, parks, and sidewalks. Its gleba releases an odor similar to that of rotting flesh to attract saprophagus insects such as earwigs, flies, sap beetles, and rove beetles to feed. When the spores are eaten by a certain species of earwig, there is a significantly higher germination rate of spores once digested and excreted with their feces.
This is the first formally published species in the history of Chinese mycology. It was collected by French missionary Pierre-Marshal Cibot and published in Communication Academia Scientia in 1775. Dai Fanglan wrote in the Collection of Fungi in China by Foreign Explorers (1979) that Cibot chose the species name mokusin as it is a transliteration of the term for “mushroom” in ancient Chinese texts.
