My kind of “fungi awareness” also means being curious about how others deal with this particular subject matter and generally what I’m finding is that most folks take a “hands off,” keep-your-distance approach. I guess if you just want a record of your subject for identification purposes or whatever that’s fine, but fungi have the potential to be so much more up-close and personal if one concentrates on their unusual design elements.

You can view the photographs here:

http://www.thephotoargus.com/inspiration/32-intriguing-examples-of-fungi-photography/

http://www.thephotoargus.com/inspiration/16-fantastic-images-of-fungi-fun/

http://www.pbase.com/thekrupgallery/fungi_by_w_krupsaw

Enjoy!

On Friday we collected on private property owned by friends of Dennis’ family. Mushrooms not as common as we expected, but there were enough in good condition to obtain many excellent photographs.  In the morning we were accompanied by a reporter and photographer from the local paper, the Del Norte Triplicate. They were interested in doing an article about Dennis, who was raised in Crescent City. You can read the resultant articles here:

• http://www.triplicate.com/News/Local-News/Mushroom-man
• http://www.triplicate.com/Northcoast-Life/Northcoast-Life/No-place-like-home
• http://www.triplicate.com/Northcoast-Life/Northcoast-Life/A-winding-trail-to-science-career

On the Saturday afternoon of our trip, we were in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. Dennis, Jane, and I were sitting on the forest floor, while Fred was off in another area. I had my camera on its tripod photographing some of the local fungi when two rangers approached us. They were not friendly; in fact their demeanor was immediately hostile. Basically they said “You are picking mushrooms. That’s illegal in this park. Show us your hands. Do you have any weapons?”

For 15-20 minutes we were required to sit there, our hands in plain view, and not allowed to continue our photography. During this entire time one of the rangers stood over us with his hand on his gun. The other ranger took our IDs and went to their truck to check our records. Dennis explained that he is a professor of mycology at San Francisco State University and that we were doing research for our forthcoming book. This only seemed to irritate the ranger. While he stood over us with his hand on his gun, the ranger told us about many of the severe problems they encountered in the park, like bodies being buried there and illicit drugs being grown or manufactured there. I’m thinking “With all these problems, why are you assholes harassing mushroom photographers and researchers”.

In the end, Dennis was cited under Title 36 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Section 2.1 (a) (1) (ii). Here is the text of the regulation:

§ 2.1 Preservation of natural, cultural and archeological resources.

(a) Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, the following is prohibited:

(1) Possessing, destroying, injuring, defacing, removing, digging, or disturbing from its natural state:

(ii) Plants or the parts or products thereof.

As readers of this blog, you probably already know that fungi are not plants! There is no mention of mushrooms or fungi anywhere in CFR Section 2.1, so there is no way our actions can legitimately be considered illegal.  Dammit, mushroom (or plant) photography is not a crime! The ticket was for $125. To fight it, Dennis would have had to travel 300 miles from his home to federal court in Eureka, which was not feasible.

I have photographed mushrooms and other fungi in many state and national parks in many areas of North America. I have had numerous encounters with rangers, but never before have I encountered hostile rangers while photographing mushrooms.

As we were driving away from the “crime scene”, Jane turned to me and said “paranoid lunatics with guns makes me nervous”. They make me nervous too.

1. Boletus edulis
2. Amanita muscaria
3. Agaricus augustus
4. Cantharellus cibarius
5. Pleurotus ostreatus
6. Clitocybe nuda
7. Amanita phalloides
8. Boletus regineus
9. Psilocybe cyanescens
10. Agaricus xanthodermus
11. Agaricus bisporus
12. Boletus appendiculatus
13. Marasmius oreades
14. Armillaria mellea
15. Agaricus arvensis
16. Lactarius rubidus
17. Agaricus campestris
18. Stropharia semiglobata
19. Tricholoma magnivelare
20. Omphalotus olivascens
21. Lactarius deliciosus
22. Craterellus cornucopioides
23. Amanita pantherina
24. Paxillus involutus
25. Leccinum manzanitae
26. Amanita lanei
27. Agaricus californicus
28. Coprinus comatus
29. Boletus chrysenteron
30. Amanita ocreata
31. Hypholoma capnoides
32. Hericium abietis
33. Cantharellus tubaeformis
34. Macrolepiota rachodes
35. Agaricus bernardii
36. Hericium erinaceus
37. Laetiporus gilbertsonii
38. Hydnum repandum
39. Agaricus silvicola
40. Pluteus cervinus
41. Gymnopilus spectabilis
42. Amanita pachycolea
43. Agaricus subrutilescens
44. Agaricus bitorquis
45. Trametes versicolor
46. Galerina autumnalis
47. Amanita vaginata
48. Gomphus clavatus
49. Cantharellus subalbidus
50. Scleroderma cepa
51. Helvella lacunosa
52. Tremella aurantia
53. Sarcodon imbricatus
54. Boletus calopus
55. Leccinum scabrum
56. Sparassis crispa
57. Boletus eastwoodiae
58. Boletus regius
59. Boletus dryophilus
60. Sarcoscypha coccinea
61. Agaricus praeclaresquamosus
62. Stropharia ambigua
63. Dacrymyces palmatus
64. Hypholoma fasciculare
65. Amanita velosa
66. Boletus zelleri
67. Amanita constricta
68. Boletus amygdalinus
69. Boletus rex-veris
70. Tricholoma flavovirens
71. Agaricus arorae
72. Agaricus cupreo-brunneus
73. Clitopilus prunulus
74. Lycoperdon perlatum
75. Morchella deliciosa
76. Flammulina velutipes
77. Hypomyces lactifluorum
78. Gomphus floccosus
79. Aleuria aurantia
80. Chlorophyllum brunneum
81. Agrocybe pediades
82. Hericium ramosum
83. Clitocybe nebularis
84. Boletus flaviporus
85. Lyophyllum decastes
86. Russula sanguinea
87. Agaricus albolutescens
88. Hygrophoropsis aurantiaca
89. Suillus pungens
90. Psilocybe coprophila
91. Mycena haematopus
92. Amanita novinupta
93. Tricholoma saponaceum
94. Phallus hadriani
95. Boletopsis leucomelaena
96. Ganoderma applanatum
97. Xylaria hypoxylon
98. Hydnum umbilicatum
99. Clitocybe dealbata
100. Agaricus benesii

In my travels around the web, I had come across several sites about morels (Morchella), but when I really started searching for morel information, there was a lot less than I expected. But there is plenty for me to start you on your world-wide-web morel hunt.

MushroomExpert

(www.mushroomexpert.com)

At Michael Kuo’s MushroomExpert.com you will find the best morel information available on the web. This should come as no surprise, as Kuo wrote the book Morels (University of Michigan Press, 2005).

Start with the page “The Morchellaceae: True Morels and Verpas”. Here you will learn that DNA studies currently indicates that there are 16 morel species in North America. Only four of these species, and four species groups, can be differentiated based on morphology and ecology. There is a key on this page to those species, species groups, and the two North American species of Verpa. There is another key, with more information, on the page “Identifying Morels with Morphology”.

Two pages describe the Morel Data Collection Project and the current state of knowledge of North American morels from this project. The meat is at “MDCP Morel Taxa” where you will find descriptions and distribution information on the two North American ‘half-free’ morels, the two named species (Morchella rufobrunnea and Morchella tomentosa), and the 12 without scientific names (The ‘Western Blond’, ‘Classic North American Yellow Morel’, ‘Classic North American Black Morel’, ‘North American Deliciosa’, plus the eight currently just called something like ‘Taxon 13’). There are links to more information and photographs of the collections in the MDCP of each of these taxa.

The Morel Data Collection Project is on-going and there are lots of geographic gaps to the current collections (for example, there are no collections of the very abundant burn morel from the Sierra Nevada mountains of California). I suspect that with more work, collections from other areas, and genetic comparison with European material, two things will become apparent.  (1)There are more species of morels in North America than the 16 currently known and (2)All European names (M. conica, M. deliciosa, M. elata, M. esculenta etc.) are all invalid and we need new names for our North American species.

Mushroom Observer

(mushroomobserver.org)

Nathan Wilson’s Mushroom Observer comes through again. There are hundreds of photographs of morels of many different species to be found here. Start by typing in ‘Morchella’ in the ‘Find:’ box and choosing ‘Observations’,  ‘Images’, or ‘Names’…and enjoy!

Tom Volk’s Fungi

(tomvolkfungi.net)

If you are an active North American mushroomer, you have probably met Dr. Tom Volk. He has undoubtedly spoken to more clubs and at more forays than any other mycologist! Tom and his students have done considerable research on morels, including finding evidence that morels, at least some of the time, are mycorrhizal! Alas I cannot find anything about this on Tom’s website, but there is other morel information. One of Tom’s early ‘Mushroom of the Month’ pages was on the morel, but even more interesting is his page on the morel life cycle.

Northern Country Morels

(www.northerncountrymorels.com)

Although concentrating on the Michigan morel season, Northern Country Morels has much to offer morelers in other parts of the country. There is a section on ‘Identifying Morels’, a section on ‘Morel Habitats’, and one on ‘Identifying Trees in Spring’, which is specific to the trees of the mid-west. But maybe the most interesting part of this website is the ‘Message Board’. There are thousands of morel and other mushroom related posts in the mushroom related forums, plus hunting & fishing forums. To access the ‘Morel Progression Maps’, ‘Mushroom Check Point’, and ‘Photo Posting Area’ forums, you must register and make a minimum of 10 posts in the other forums. This requirement is designed to induce content in these forums.

Morel Mania

(morelmania.com)

These pages are by Tom and Vicky Nauman, avid morelers from Illinois. Although primarily a business site, there is some nice morel information here. On the sightings page, photos and comments about the morel season are posted. The archives page has older short articles about morels and other mushrooms. The Morel Mania catalog has lots of really neat morel products—walking sticks, jewelry, carved morels and so forth. One product you can buy is the beautiful Shroom Stik™, a handmade walking stick with a morel at the top.

Others

A few other sites, listed here without comment:

• Michigan Morels (www.michiganmorels.com)
• The Great Morel (thegreatmorel.com)
• 1 Morel Mushroom Lane (morelsandmore.com)
• Morels.com (www.morels.com)
• Morel Mushroom Hunting Club (www.morelmushroomhunting.com)

The target was Mount Rainier. Not the best place or time to look for Polyozellus multiplex, the “Blue Chanterelle”. However, considering that I was headed back to Florida soon, this would be my last chance for a long time. There had been vague reports of sightings around that area, so I was going for it.

That was on Thursday night, and my hunt the next day was fruitful in some regards, but did not yield what I really wanted to find-Polyozellus multiplex. And the clock was ticking.

On both Saturday and Sunday, I would be manning my table at the Seattle mushroom fair, and my return flight was on Monday morning. Sometime during the fair on Saturday, a volunteer and I were chatting. As the talk turned to my “hunt for this rare blue mushroom”, she said, “Oh yes, I saw a lot of those up Frying Pan Creek trail.” My head was spinning. I had passed that trail just the day before on Mt. Rainer. The problem now was time.

There was no chance of going up on the mountain just before my flight on Monday. So the only possibility was to get up early Sunday, do the hunt, and return to Seattle and to the mushroom fair.

The alarm went off at 4:30 Sunday morning. There were plenty of java joints on the way to rev me up (it was Seattle!) and I was off in the dark to the mountain.

By 7:00 I arrived at the trail, flashlight in hand. But Polyozellus multiplex appear black from the top and are not easy to find in the dark.

Though I found nothing by flashlight, the sun was coming up making the hunt for black and blue mushrooms a little easier. I went up and down the trail for a mile or so as well as up and down the hillside to the left and right of the trail. And then, there was one; one beautiful clump of perfect “blue chanterelles” waiting for their cameo shot.

Back in Seattle I had cleaned out my camera storage card, and as I turned on the camera, it said “card empty”. Perfect. Lots of room to take lots of shots. But as I went for my second photo, it said “card full”. Yikes! Then I realized that when I cleaned out the card by putting all in the trash, I had forgotten to “empty” the trash. This could have been a disaster if it weren’t for the backup card in my case. Though it was almost full as well, I manually edited the photos on it to make enough room for a few shots. Polyozellus multiplex went from the “wanted” list to the “got it” list.

By 11:30 I was back at the mushroom fair where I changed from my field to fair clothes in the bathroom. And as I shared the photos on my camera and retold the morning’s events, I was asked repeatedly, “What? That happened this morning?” At this point my job was to stay awake-not a problem with lots of talkative show goers and the kind of coffee that coded the computer world.

http://www.kingdomoffungi.com/c_pages/mlr.11.09/mlr.11.09.php

References

Index Fungorum (http://www.indexfungorum.org/Names/Names.asp):  This is a very important world database of fungal names and synonyms. You can search for a name or species epithet. For example, if you are interested in finding all the taxa ever published as “Boletus”, a genus search returns 2374 taxa that have been described as Boletus. Some of these are synonyms or species that would not now be considered a Boletus. Searching on Boletus edulis shows you over 50 named varieties, forma, and subspecies of B. edulis, but not yet the recently described Boletus edulis var. grandedulis (which is our local variety here on the west coast). The names returned on any search have the author citation, year published and family. Most also include the literature citation, a very useful function of Index Fungorum.

Classification from the Dictionary of the Fungi (http://www.indexfungorum.org/Names/fundic.asp): If you don’t want to spend the $125 to purchase the new 10^th edition of the Dictionary of the Fungi, you can find the classification information here. There are two ways to use this:

1. Click on ‘view kingdoms’ and drill down (e.g. Kingdom Fungi : Phylum Basidiomycota :  Class Agaricomycetes :  Subclass Agaricomycetidae :  Order Agaricales : Family Mycenaceae : Genus Mycena). I bet you didn’t know that Dictyopanus, Flavolaschia, Filoboletus, Panellus (among many others) are now all considered to be in the family Mycenaceae, along with Mycena!
2. Type in a genus name and click ‘search for genus’. This will give you the author, year published, citation, plus the hierarchical classification.

International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (http://ibot.sav.sk/icbn/main.htm): The International Code of Botanical Nomenclature is the “rulebook” that governs the naming of all plants and fungi. The latest ICBN is the “Vienna” code from 2005.

Fungi of Australia Glossary (http://tinyurl.com/FungiGlossary):  A very good fungal glossary, the best I have found on the web. It could be improved with the addition of illustrations for many of the terms (e.g. an illustration would make terms like “lageniform” much faster to comprehend). The best glossary I know for fungal shapes, etc. is Else Vellinga’s glossary from the first volume of Flora Agaricina Neerlandica, but alas, not available online.

Descriptions and Keys

Pacific Northwest Key Council (http://www.svims.ca/council/keys.htm):  If you live on the west coast of the US, especially the Pacific Northwest, these keys will be invaluable.  Over 75 genera or groups are included with online keys, plus you can download the keys as either MS-Word or RTF files.  Some of the species keyed are illustrated with photographs.

The Fungi of California (http://www.CaliforniaFungi.com/):  Descriptions of over 470 species of California fungi, with over 570 species illustrated by almost 4000 photographs. Included are links to other descriptions and photos on the web for the species covered.

Russulales News (http://www.mtsn.tn.it/russulales-news/welcome.asp):  With contributions from such world experts in the Russuales as Bart Buyck and Annemieke Verbeken, this site has to be good! It is intended to eventually include the original Latin diagnosis, a description, and photographs or illustrations (macroscopic and microscopic) of all the species in the Russulales. Currently 379 species of Russula, Lactarius, and Multifurca are illustrated with color photographs.

Studies in Coprinus (http://www.grzyby.pl/coprinus-site-Kees-Uljee/species/Coprinus.htm):  Keys, descriptions, illustrations of the micro features, and photographs of over 140 species of Coprinus s.l. by Kees Uljé. This is a very useful site that has been superseded by Uljé’s treatment of Coprinus s.l. in volume 6 of Flora Agaricina Neerlandica (but that is not on the web!).

Amanita Studies (http://pluto.njcc.com/~ret/amanita/): Rod Tulloss’ Amanita pages include over 500 world-wide species of Amanita, divided into 7 sections. Most species have at least brief species description, many also have a technical description and/or photographs. This is a very valuable website, but is very hard to navigate. The site desperately needs a logical re-organization and an index to all the species.

Mycena Page (http://home.online.no/~araronse/mycenapage/mycenapage.html): These pages by Arne Aronsen include a key to over 100 species of Mycena found in Norway, complete with excellent descriptions and photographs. A very useful site, especially so since the majority of these species also occur in North America.

A revision of Collybia s.l. in the northeastern United States and adjacent Canada (http://www.nybg.org/bsci/res/col/colintro.html): This is a revised online version of the out-of-print Collybia monograph by Roy Halling originally published by the New York Botanical Garden in 1983. The revisions include segregating Collybia (sensu 1980’s) into its modern genera (Collybia s.s., Gymnopus, & Rhodocollybia). Included are keys, descriptions, photographs, and illustrations of the microscopic features. Unfortunately the introductory sections from the book dealing with history, nomenclature, taxonomic features, and materials and methods are not included here.

The North American Species of Pholiota (http://www.mykoweb.com/Pholiota/): Here you will find the complete contents of the Smith and Hesler monograph from 1968—”The North American Species of Pholiota. New York, NY: Hafner Publishing Company (492 p. + 90 pl.).” In addition to the online material, a PDF of the entire publication is available for download.

North American Species of Crepidotus (http://www.mykoweb.com/Crepidotus/):  Here you will find the complete contents of Hesler and Smith monograph from 1965—”North American Species of Crepidotus. New York, NY: Hafner Publishing Company (168 p. + 18 pl.).” In addition to the online material, a PDF of the entire publication is available for download.

Home of the Xylariaceae (http://mycology.sinica.edu.tw/Xylariaceae/): Fourteen to the 40 genera of the Xylariaceae are treated here. There is a synoptic key to the genera, plus information on the ecology, evolution, and taxonomy of the genera treated. You will also find descriptions (and sometimes photographs) of the species in these genera.

Conclusion

We have covered some of the sites with the best information, but there are many more to explore. I maintain a list of websites with this type of information on the Systematics pages at MykoWeb (http://www.mykoweb.com/systematics/index.html). If you find a good website that is missing from the listings at MykoWeb, please let me know so I can add it!

Unfortunately, they were situated next to an inside hairpin turn on a busy mountain road. I admired them for a few moments, while I tried to avoid getting hit by passing cars. I thought “there’s got to be more of them around” so I left without a photograph. That was twenty years ago and I haven’t seen that species since-until last week.

I was visiting a friend’s cattle ranch looking for those “funny mushrooms” (for photos only, thank you). Just as the sky was threatening to dump a Florida summer rain, I caught a glimpse of the mushroom “that got away” twenty years before. It was twelve feet up a small, dead tree and I hurried home to get my eight-foot ladder. When I returned, I caught this white treasure, Volvariella bombycina, in full glory.

Volvariellas are best known for their edible varieties, especially the “paddy straw mushroom” or Volvariella volvacea. These are the delicious little grey ones you see commonly in Asian cuisine. Some larger Volvariellas are also edible. On occasion, they have been the mushroom that people were hunting when they mistakenly picked a “Death Cap”, Amanita phalloides, or “Death Angel”, Amanita virosa.

For my purposes, capturing the beauty of mushrooms, the photo-op was well worth the wait. It reminded me that there are thousands more yet to be found in their fleeting, but glorious, hour.

Photos

Although there are not as many good mushroom photo sites as we would all like to see, there are a few that present consistently fine fungal photography. I will introduce you to a few here:

Yves Deneyer: Mycologie et Photographie (http://users.skynet.be/deneyer.mycology/): This is a place where you can spend many wonderful hours exploring.  With 3590 photographs illustrating 1500 species, it is one of the largest mushroom photography sites on the web. The quality of the photos is excellent and they are presented in a luxuriously large size (900 x 675 pixels) for your viewing pleasure.

Pilzgalerie (http://www.pilzepilze.de/galerie/main.php): With over 3500 photos of about 500 species, this is another huge photo site. The quality of the photographs is excellent and the size is very nice at mostly 800 x 600 pixels.

Cercle de Mycologie de Mons (JJ Wuilbaut) (http://users.skynet.be/jjw.myco.mons/): This is another large collection of very good photographs. There are about 1750 photographs, mostly from Belgium and France. They are presented in a nice size (around 800 x 600 pixels).

David Work Mushroom Photography (http://fiddlehead.smugmug.com/Fungi): David, besides being a fine fungal photographer, is a chef and a contributing editor to Fungi. There are several hundred beautiful photos here, many available in very large sizes.

Gruppo Micologico «G. Bresadola» (http://www.mtsn.tn.it/bresadola/gallery_index.asp): About 250 species are illustrated with very good photographs by Marco Floriani. The size of the photos is mostly 600 x 400 pixels.

Photogalerie des Pilzvereins der Region Baden (http://www.pilz-baden.ch/album.html):  Nice photos, presented at about 640 x 480 pixels, of close to 400 species. Unlike most collections listed here, these photos are accompanied by descriptions (in German).

Mycolim-Fotogalerij (http://www.mycolim.be/fotogalerij.htm):  Nice photos of about 400 species, many illustrated with multiple photos. The photographs are 600 x 450 pixels, or a bit bigger, and each is given both its Latin and Dutch name.

Kinoko-ya (http://kinoko-ya.sakura.ne.jp/01eng/0e_home.htm): Kinoko means mushroom in Japanese and Kinoko-ya roughly translates as “mushroomer”.  Excellent photographs of about 140 species. Sizes range from around 600 x 400 to 800 x 600 pixels.

Here are a few more mushroom photo sites, listed without comment, for your viewing pleasure:
Hunting for Mushrooms (http://home.att.net/~mushrooms/)
Swedish Fungi (http://www.swefungi.se/)
Wild Mushrooms from Tokyo (http://www.ne.jp/asahi/mushroom/tokyo/
Pilzgalerie.de (http://www.pilzgalerie.de/)
Société Mycologique Vaudoise (http://www.myco-vaud.ch/alpha.html)

Many of these sites are not in English, but that hardly matters since you can navigate using the Latin names and the pictures are universal. Many of these sites (and most other mushroom photo sites not listed here) could be improved by presenting the photographs in larger resolutions. With today’s high resolution monitors (the lowest resolution desktop monitor sold today runs at 1280 x 1024 pixels…my main monitor runs at 1920 x 1200 pixels) a 600 x 400 pixel photo looks rather small on the screen! At The Fungi of California (www.CaliforniaFungi.com) we aim for 800 x 600 for our “regular” sized photos and 1280 x 960 for our large photos. Quality mushroom photographs deserve to be presented in a size where the beauty of the mushrooms can be easily appreciated, not as the thumbnail sizes so often found on many web sites.

MykoWeb was one of the first mushroom sites on the World Wide Web. Started on 27 September 1995, it has just celebrated its first birthday as a teenager! Since inception, MykoWeb has grown into what is probably the world’s largest and most informative mycological web site. With over 1400 pages and over 6000 photographs, the information presented is extensive.

Since MykoWeb is a large and complex site, we won’t be able to cover all of its attractions in this review, but all of the major sections should get a mention. Everyone interested in mushrooms, fungi, or mycology, whether a beginner, advanced amateur, or professional should find something of interest at MykoWeb.

The largest section of MykoWeb is “The Fungi of California”. This section is different from the rest of MykoWeb, since it has two principle developers, Michael Wood and Fred Stevens. The goal of “The Fungi of California” is to document all of the macro fungi found in the state of California with both descriptions and photographs. With habitats that include coastal rain forests, high mountain forests, scrub oak lands, deserts, grasslands, farmlands, landscaped urban areas, and many more, California has a large diversity of fungi and documenting this diversity in one lifetime is a goal that is undoubtedly unobtainable.

But an impressive start has been made.  At the time of this writing “The Fungi of California” has covered 554 species, with written descriptions of 445 of these species. The 554 species are currently illustrated with 3707 photographs. Most species also include principle references (citations of technical descriptions, including protologues) and links to other information and/or photographs about the species elsewhere on the Web.

MykoWeb has also reprinted all of four out-of-print books on-line: a cookbook and three major mushroom monographs. Wild About Mushrooms: the Cookbook of the Mycological Society of San Francisco by Louise Freedman was originally published in 1987, but like many good books, went out-of-print too soon. This wonderful mushroom cookbook was reprinted on MykoWeb in 2000.  You will find lots of recipes, cooking tips, and other information on edible mushrooms.

The first book reprinted by MykoWeb was Dr. Harry Thiers’ California Mushrooms—A Field Guide to the Boletes. The online name was changed to “The Boletes of California” to clarify what was covered and to be more in line with what Dr. Thiers wanted to title the book. Included are keys and descriptions of the 85 species of boletes (Boletus, Leccinum, Suillus, etc.) known in California when the book was originally published in 1975.

Recently, MykoWeb has added two major monographs by Dr. Alexander Smith and Dr. L. R. Hesler: The North American Species of Pholiota and the North American Species of Crepidotus. The Pholiota book covers 216 taxa and the Crepidotus book covers 139 taxa. Included are all the illustrations and photographs from the original books. You can expect to see more monographs reprinted at MykoWeb in the future.

MykoWeb has many articles and book reviews by a number of good authors. The most significant of these is “The Toxic Fungi of Western North America” by Dr. Tom Duffy. This book-length (over 45,000 words) ‘article’ gives a great introduction to the Western toxic mushrooms and their toxins and includes valuable sections on diagnosis and treatment of mushroom poisoning.

What do you want to know about mycology? You may find it at MykoWeb with recipes, mycorrhizae, taxonomy, cultivation, microscopy, and photography among the many subjects included in the “Articles” section. There are also a plethora of book reviews by Steve Trudell and others that cover a wide range of books, from children’s books and field guides, all the way to books on the most technical of mycological subjects.

The “Systematics” (taxonomy and nomenclature) section of MykoWeb is designed to give the more experienced amateur mushroomers resources to go “beyond the field guide” in identifying mushrooms. The first page here is a list of annotated on-line references…the most important being “Index Fungorum”, an essential database of all fungal names ever published. The real meat of the “Systematics” section is the “Fungal Descriptions and Keys On-Line” page which includes annotated links to about 150 sites with good descriptions and/or keys to various groups of fungi. Here you are bound to find useful information on a group of fungi of interest to you. A recent addition presents PDF files of lots of old, out-of-print, but still important mycological literature. For example you can download PDFs of all 15 segments of E. A. Burt’s classic “Thelephoraceae of North America”. Much more old literature will be added in the future. Lastly in the “Systematics” section there is a page of miscellaneous links to mycology labs, sites with good photographs, and more.

It would take weeks to explore all of MykoWeb, here we have just given a brief introduction to the highlights. There is a lot more…information and photos from the MycoBlitzes at Point Reyes National Seashore, photographs of fungi from outside of California, illustrations and excerpts from old mushroom books, mushroom watercolors, and lots of mushroom trivia. Whatever your interest, if it revolves around mushrooms and other fungi, you will find something of interest at MykoWeb!

(Originally published in Fungi Magazine: Vol. 1, No. 4; Winter 2008.)

Dr. Harry Thiers held the first class in June of 1982. The class has been held every June (with one exception) since then. Since 1993 it has been taught by Dr. Dennis Desjardin. My first trip to the class was in 1984…with last week’s class I have been there 14 times…half the total number of classes.

One of my principle reasons for returning so many times is to get more photos and notes on the fungi of the area for inclusion in “The Fungi of California”. Another is that many of the fungi found there are what are called “snowbank” fungi and only grow near melting snow banks in the mountainous regions of the Western United States. For more information on snowbank fungi, see Dr. Cathy Cripps’ article from the spring 2009 issue of Fungi Magazine.

Another reason to travel to the Yuba Pass class is the see how many new species we can add to the list of species found during the class. The list is now about 475 species long, with an average of 145 species found each year. This year the collecting was poor and we only found 114 species. But we did manage to add 8 species new to the list. This illustrates how little we really know about the funga* of an area. With 20+ persons collecting in the same area, the same week, for 28 years, new species are added to the collection list every year!

Here are links to descriptions and photographs of some of the more common fungi found over the years:

• Boletus rex-veris
• Calocypha fulgens
• Chromosera cyanophylla
• Ciboria rufofusca
• Gyromitra montana
• Handkea fumosa
• Handkea subcretacea
• Heterotextus alpinus
• Lentinellus montanus
• Mycena nivicola
• Mycena overholtzii
• Nivatogastrium nubigenum
• Plectania nannfeldtii
• Sarcosphaera coronaria
• Tricholoma vernaticum

* Funga refers to the fungus species occurring within an area. It is the mycological equivalent of flora or fauna.