Story behind the art of Sarah Morrish

Curious Allies: Mutualism in Fungi, Parasites, and Carnivores

The Fifth New York Botanical Garden Triennial

Octopus Stinkhorn and Yellow Dung-fly

Clathrus archeri, Scathophaga stercoraria

Devil’s fingers, Clathrus alcheri, is a rare fungus in the United Kingdom that occurs in parts of the New Forest National Park, near where I live. It is found in woodland, but mostly in open, rough, grassy areas. The species proved elusive to me for several years, and it was only during the pandemic government-mandated lockdown, at those times when we were permitted to travel a bit further from home, that I eventually found this fungus with the help of a fellow naturalist. 

The fungus first appears as an “egg’’ about the size of a golf ball. Inside this, the fungus grows, while attached to an extensive mycelium – a root-like network of fungal threads – through a long thick strand. At maturation, the “egg” splits, and the pinky red tentacles emerge, covered in a thick, gelatinous, olive-black, sticky slime known as gleba, which smells like rotting flesh, and which contains the spores.

The yellow dung-fly Scathophaga stercoraria is one of the invertebrates attracted to gleba. Slime attaches to insects when they touch it, and so the spores are dispersed far and wide.

Devil’s fingers is an alien species from the Southern Hemisphere, where in Australia it is called octopus stinkhorn. Perhaps it arrived in Europe with war supplies, or possibly with wool. It was first discovered in the UK in 1914. Later, the New Forest became home to several military bases in the 1940s, and areas here are reliable “hotspots” for finding this species.

When it came to fieldwork and recording details for a further painting, it was a challenge to choose which aspects of this extraordinary fungus to include in an illustration. When working in the field with my sketchbook, I often like to do some quick, more organic looking sketches of the subject using a fine line pen. I can then capture a sense of scale as well as form and texture. The number of tentacles that emerge from the egg-like structure can vary. Often there are three to five, but we saw several specimens with over six tentacles.

In terms of the color, I did not see a great variability in the reds and pinks that occur in the species. The horrible smelling slime varied from a dark olive green through to black. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my paints with me, so I had to rely on images from my camera and phone for color references.

When taking images in the field I prefer not to rely just on my phone camera. The colors can appear just a little too bright. I also use a small Panasonic Lumix camera with an excellent quality lens. The colors are much more realistic, and if I do not have color notes, these are my go to images.

One of my favorite sketchbooks is the Strathmore hardbound mixed media journal. The paper has a vellum surface and is also a good thickness (270gsm), so is great to use when I use watercolor.

Later in my studio, I selected a range of images that I had taken and started to put together a composition. I wanted to include as many of the growth stages as possible, and my first drawings were on thin layout and tracing paper, mainly consisting of line drawings. Each element was drawn slightly larger than life, so that I could capture all the amazing details and color variations in the subject.

To determine the color mixes needed, I used the peep-hole method to help me isolate individual colors, and then made a color reference card using a piece of the watercolor paper that was to be used for the painting.

I so enjoyed painting this subject. I have always worked in watercolor, but in recent years I have been focused more on pen and ink. This was the perfect subject to re-discover my love of painting in watercolor.

As to challenges when completing the painting, two areas proved a little difficult. One was creating the transparent membrane covering the tentacles before they emerge from the egg. I painted this using permanent white gouache that I diluted significantly for the first area laid down, and then used it a little more concentrated when it came to portraying creases in the membrane.

The other challenge was portraying the black slime. This varied in color, as I mentioned earlier. I found myself creating a range of blacks using three primary colors, but also using a few more opaque colors to enhance the density of the black. I built up layers of watercolor to ensure that the areas of slime looked three-dimensional on the paper, as if raised up from the surface of the tentacles.

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Read more about this artist's work: Out of the Woods