Hello Mushroom Lovers!

In this email, Foray Chair Sam Landes reveals more exciting news about NAMA’s upcoming foray in the Pacific Northwest, October 11-14.

BC: Let’s talk mushrooms first. What kinds of “only in the Northwest” mushrooms should we be able to find in mid-October?

SL: It’s the beginning of matsutake season and the Oregon truffles may be starting too. Since our foray sites will range from the Cascade Mountains to the Oregon coast, we’ll be able to find quite a variety of fungi.

BC: Mushrooms are only part of the fun of the foray. What else will we especially like about this spot?

SL: The MacCleay center is a great facility. It’s a conference center as opposed to a camp, so it’s designed for adults. The space is compact and level and the rooms have air conditioning and heat. There’s an outdoor pool, a hot tub, and his and her saunas. There’s a coffee bar and we can bring beer and wine. The food is good, and there will be vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free options. There are small designated smoking areas for any legal substance and plenty of places to socialize.

There’s great stuff off the grounds, too. We’ll be just 15 minutes away from Salem, Oregon’s capital. You’ll find lots of vineyards and craft breweries along the way. We’ve planned half-day forays at Silver Falls State Park, voted the best state park in Oregon:  https://www.oregonlive.com/travel/index.ssf/2018/03/readers_pick_their_12_favorite.html

For those who prefer to stay in a hotel, we’ve arranged special rates at the Best Western Pacific Highway Inn in Salem.  It is about 15 minutes from the Macleay Center.
https://www.bestwestern.com/en_US/book/hotels-in-salem/best-western-pacific-highway-inn/propertyCode.38086.html
Call to request the NAMA rate.

BC: I know that you’ve scheduled some of our favorite traditional events such as a mushroom feast (mycophagy) and lots of lectures. Are there any “for the first time” or “only in Oregon” events people will want to know about?

SL: We have several speakers from Oregon State University. One of Friday evening’s keynote speakers, professor Sara Robinson, will be speaking about spalted wood—beautifully colored and patterned wood that results from fungal decay.  Check out Spalted Wood (the movie) here: http://spaltedwood.com/. On Saturday, she’ll give a wood turning demonstration and also have pigment samples for you to paint with.

There will be sessions on identification, photography, and cultivation. As always, there will be a mushroom tasting, and members of local clubs will offer cooking demonstrations.

If that isn’t enough fun and fungi, put on this great foray t-shirt  and head 50 miles down the road to the Breitenbush Hot Springs Mushroom Gathering, October 18-21.

The full event schedule will be posted on NAMA’s website soon.

For registration information, see https://www.namyco.org/nama_2018_salem_oregon_foray.php

Our very own Les Braund will be presenting at the Ocean Beach Library on June 12 @ 6pm

President of the San Diego Mycological Society, Les Braund, will be presenting a talk about the wild and wonderful world of mushrooms in San Diego County! Learn about Earth Stars, Bird’s Nest and Blewit mushrooms as well as how to identify poisonous and edible mushrooms.

Here’s a link to the Ocean Beach Library Facebook event page

Les Braund at the Ocean Beach Library on June 12 @ 6pm

Our April 30th, 2018 meeting is a potluck dinner. The dinner starts at 7 PM in Room 101, Casa Del Prado in Balboa Park. Please bring a cooked or cold dish and your own beverage. (Note: there will be no kitchen access) The club will provide plates, cups, napkins, and utensils, but feel free to bring your own. If your dish contains wild mushrooms, please provide identification of the type contained in your dish.
Volunteers are needed for setting up and decorating the room. Set-up will begin around 6:30pm. We need help arranging tables and chairs, placing tablecloths, and decorating. Feel free to bring greenery or decorations.

We encourage you to upload photos of any mushrooms you can find locally: From April 27-30, 2018, the San Diego Natural History Museum (The Nat) is spearheading our local effort to document as many species as possible via iNaturalist…
read more…

For the Monday April 2nd meeting our speaker will be Bonni Thoresen, speaking on “Mushrooms and Fungi of Southern California and Northern Baja”.

The meeting will start at 6:30 PM in Room 101, Casa Del Prado in Balboa Park. We will take Bonni to dinner before the meeting around 5:00 at the Blue Water Seafood Grill. Come along to meet Bonni over dinner.

Further details to follow.

For the Monday March 5th, 2018 meeting, our speaker will be Else Vellinga, a mycologist who is interested in naming and classifying mushroom species in California and beyond, speaking on “Fungal conservation” discussing reasons to include fungi in conservation and management plans.

The meeting will start at 6:30 PM in Room 101, Casa Del Prado in Balboa Park. We will take Else to dinner before the meeting around 5:00 at the Blue Water Seafood Grill. Come along to meet Else over dinner.

Bio:
Else Vellinga is a mycologist who is interested in naming and classifying mushroom species in California and beyond, especially Parasol mushrooms. She has described 22 species as new for California, and most recently worked at the herbaria at UC Berkeley and SFSU for the Macrofungi and Microfungi Collections Digitization projects. She got her training at the national herbarium in the Netherlands, and her PhD at the university of Leiden. Her main goal is to contribute to the conservation of mushroom species, and for that reason she has proposed several species for the IUCN global database of endangered species. She tries to keep current with the mushroom literature. Else is also an avid knitter and likes to use mushroom dyed yarn for her creations.

Talk:
The talk “Fungal conservation” will discuss reasons to include fungi in conservation and management plans. The focus will be on California, and the central question will be: How can we bring fungi into the mainstream of conservation efforts? Many issues concerning the gathering of data and information will be covered, and especially how citizen-scientists can contribute.

Fungus Fair Description
Click Image Thumbnail to enlarge

For the Monday February 5th, 2018 meeting, our speaker will be Dr. Christopher May, President of the Arizona Mushroom Society, speaking on the many mushrooms that grow in Arizona and the habitats where they are found

The meeting will start at 6:30 PM in Room 101, Casa Del Prado in Balboa Park. We will take Dr. May to dinner before the meeting around 5:00 at the Blue Water Seafood Grill. Come along to meet Dr. May over dinner.

LECTURE OUTLINE:

Residents of San Diego are no doubt familiar with the influx of “Zonies” who invade the beaches and amusement parks of their fair city to escape the Arizona summers. Few of them, even many members of the San Diego Mycological Society, are aware that there is a similar but much smaller migration of knowledgeable mushroom hunters in the other direction at the same time. The hot weather of mid-July to mid-September is the season when near-daily monsoon thunderstorms dump copious moisture on the heavily-forested mountains that rise from the deserts to almost 13,000 feet elevation in the northern and eastern part of the state. During this short but usually productive season, the forests respond with a riot of fungi of all descriptions, including many of the most desirable edible species like porcini, chanterelles, oyster mushrooms, and lobster mushrooms.

The climatological and geographic features that give life to our forests will be discussed, as well as the vast public lands where mushroom hunting is allowed (and a few places where it is not.) He will also talk about printed and on-line resources that are helpful to Arizona mushroom hunters, and speak briefly about the Arizona Mushroom Society and its events.

BIO:

Christopher May, M.D., is a radiologist in Scottsdale, Arizona. Until a few years ago, his only non-culinary involvement with fungi was limited to occasionally diagnosing fungal diseases on medical imaging studies. In the summer of 2010, he took his father to visit an old friend who is a mushroom farmer in England, and became fascinated by the complex and unfamiliar biological processes that characterize the Kingdom of Fungi. Shortly after his return, he went on a foray with the Arizona Mushroom Club and its founder, Dr. Chet Leathers, who instantly got him hooked on exploring the Arizona forests for wild mushrooms. Learning more and more each year about the topic, he started the Arizona Mushroom Forum website and Facebook page in 2014, providing a central meeting place for our local mushroom enthusiasts to share notes and photos. In 2016, when Dr. Leathers retired, the old Arizona Mushroom Club was reorganized into the Arizona Mushroom Society, an incorporated 501(c)(3) non-profit, and Chris became its first elected president. Under his supervision, the Society has grown to over 400 members who take part in 5-10 forays per year, depending on conditions, as well as lectures, workshops, and culinary events. He is a member of the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) and a volunteer identifier for its Toxicology Committee. He organized the NAMA Regional Foray last year in the White Mountains of Arizona, and was recently presented with the NAMA Harry and Elsie Knighton Service Award.

Christian Schwarz here, author of Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast, and citizen science/natural history educator. In light of the recent rains that have blessed our CA coast, I am looking to teach a set of mushroom-identification focused workshops in SoCal in the next two months.

The dates I am looking to fill are:
San Diego – 10th February
Los Angeles – 17th February

These walks are intended to be 6 hour sessions covering the finding, collecting, keying, vouchering, and basics of fungal biology. I am open to leading these walks anywhere nearby that is convenient for your clubs!

More info TBA