Charles Darwin's daughter had an unusual hobby: Hunting phallic mushrooms

Charles Darwin's daughter had an unusual hobby: Hunting phallic mushrooms More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. A well-known tale says Henrietta Darwin (left), or Aunt Etty, as family called her once burned phallic-shaped mushrooms to protect the "morals of the maids. But is the story really true? Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy . On a warm autumn day in the early 1900s, Henrietta Darwin, Charles Darwin's eldest daughter, marched into the woods near her house on the outskirts of Gomshall, a rural English village about 30 miles southwest of London. Armed with a basket and a stick, her keen eyes scanned the damp, leafy undergrowth. At last, she smelled a rotten odor, and directed her gaze to the stench. There, a few feet away, she spotted her enemy: the stinkhorn mushroom. With its elongated shape protruding from the ground, the penis-shaped fungus oozed with a slime that smelled like carrion . She dug it up, took it home, and burned it before anyone could see it. The unsightly mushroom could have corrupted her maids' morals, or even their health. At least, that was the excuse she told her young niece Gwen Raverat, with a twinkle in her eye. A fascinating woman in her own right, Henrietta Darwin was one of Charles Darwin's 10 children. Although Raverat paints an interesting picture of Henrietta's mushroom-hunting passion in her memoir, Henrietta's father, the famous naturalist and author of deeply valued his daughter as a collaborator on some of his most important works. Born in 1843, Henrietta was Darwin's third daughter and the first to survive early childhood. As a young woman, she was raised in a household of curiosity and scientific engagement, and likely due to her father's work on evolutionary theory, she wrestled with questions of free will, God, and the possibility of eternal life. This book was the first of Darwin's works to apply his theory of evolution to the human species. For her efforts, Darwin wrote to her in 1870: "You have done me real service; but by Jove, how hard you must have worked, and how thoroughly you have mastered my MS [manuscript]," he wrote. "All this is as clear as daylight." Public Domain He also wrote to her again in 1871, after had been published: "Several reviewers speak of the lucid, vigorous style, & c.