A man was cutting the grass in his mum’s back garden when he ran over a glass jar which he noticed was giving off a foul stench and which on closer examination turned out to have a severed penis inside.

The man, who was not named, called the police after finding the severed penis in his mum’s back garden in the city of San Jose de Balcarce in the Buenos Aires Province of Argentina on Tuesday (14th September).

The local news site Clarin reports that the young man was doing gardening for his mum when he accidentally broke the glass jar.

He was then hit by a foul rotting odour which he realised was coming from the broken jar.

The man lent down to inspect the jar and noticed that inside there was a rotting severed penis.

The police were alerted, who sent a forensics team, who are examining the penis to determine if it is a human penis as it appears to be, and if so who it belonged to.

A police spokesperson told Clarin: “The penis was in a jar that the gardener accidentally broke while gardening,”

The spokesperson added: “Currently we are not ruling out any possible explanations as to how the penis ended up in a jar in the woman’s garden.”

The authorities stated that it is possible that the penis has been preserved for a long time in the jar so it may be linked to an incident dating back a considerable amount of time.

They added that the garden had not been tended to over three months suggesting the decomposing penis had spent at least that long in the jar.

The case has been classified as a ‘human remains discovery’ and an investigation has been launched.

The forensics team is expected to deliver its conclusion on whether the penis is from a human by the end of this week.