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Published by the Mushroom Club of Georgia

Winter 2013

Inside this issue:

MCG Newsletter

Myco-cabulary Corner 3

President’s Corner 3

Blasts from the Past 4

Attending the 2012 NAMA Foray 4

Important

Dates!

Monthly Meetings @ OUR NEW SPACE Intown Community Church 2059 Lavista Road 30329

Wednesday, March 6, 7:00 pm

Marin Talbot-Brewer, Mycologist at UGA

"Diversity of two plant-destroying fungi: an introduction to my fungal research”

Wednesday, April 3, 7:00 pm

Daniel Winkler www.mushroaming.com

"Mushroaming" in Tibet

Wednesday, June 5, 7:00 pm

Katherine Ball, Artist/Activist

Mushrooms as a Medium of Expression

Wednesday, July 3, 7:00 pm

Walt Sturgeon, E Coast Mushroom Expert

Wednesday, October 2, 7:00 pm

Susan Hopkins

Dyeing with Mushrooms

NAMA Foray - Oct 24-26, 2013

MUSHROOM CLUB OF

GEORGIA CHANGES

MEETING VENUE

ATLANTA, GA— The Mushroom Club of

Georgia has announced that the location for

their monthly meetings will change in

2013.

After a substantial

relationship with REI,

one of the nation’s

leading purveyor’s of

outdoor clothing, footwear and gear, the

organization will move their monthly meet-

ings to Intown Community Church located

at 2059 LaVista Road NE, Atlanta GA

Click on map to enter your

starting address for directions!

----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Dr.Whitey To: Cornelia Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2012 10:26 PM Subject: Mushroom Hunter

Hi Guys: The Metro Pulse – Knoxville’s entertainment, restaurant and visitors guide featured mush-rooms this week. See this link http://www.metropulse.com/news/knoxville-world-of-mushrooms/ for a feature on me. Note the plug for the Asheville Mushroom Club. Also, check out the restaurant article too – I did a cooking class with one of the places. Cheers, Whitey

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Back to basics…now, these sound sexy, but, honest,

they’re NOT (well, to each her own, right?)

#1 ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

#2 ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

Answer - Page 5

Where we shall

venture to improve

our mycological

vocabulary for the

purposes of

education,

identification, and

FUN!

Mushroom Club Committees

CULTIVATION CO-CHAIR: Katharine Geier

CULTIVATION CO-CHAIR: David Dunagan

PROGRAM CHAIR: George Altman

MERCHANDISING CHAIR: Sam Landes

NEWSLETTER EDITOR: George Altman

HOSPITALITY COORDINATOR: Stefanie Hanugud

WALK CHAIR: TBD

PUBLICITY & OUTREACH CHAIR: Ellen Wan

WEBMASTER: Rod Stafford

Our sister organizations

Asheville Mushroom Club

south carolina upstate mycological society

Published by the

Mushroom Club of Georgia

Find us...but don’t eat us @

gamushroomclub.org

n

Mushroom Club Officers

PRESIDENT: Cornelia Cho

VICE-PRESIDENT: Rod Stafford

TREASURER: Sam Landes

RECORDING SECRETARY: Katharine Geier

Myco-cabulary Corner

http://philross.org/#blog/

Below are some of his furniture prototypes

grown from fungal tissue.

u l

a e t e

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We have a very exciting year ahead.

President’s Corner

Hello Members!

Sam and I went to the NAMA (North American Mycological Association) convention in California in

December and had a great time connecting with friends and meeting new ones. In particular we made a

number of connections with potential speakers.

Our speaker from last November, Larry Millman, had suggested several people he thought our

club would enjoy and one of those we have already booked jointly with SCUMS (South Carolina Upland

Mycological Society) for November. Bob Blanchette from the Univ of Minnesota studies forest pathology

and the microbiology of wood decay. One of his projects has a very high coolness factor. He has been

instrumental in figuring out a sustainable way to grow Aloeswood, also known as "Wood of the Gods" or

Agarwood. It is a highly valued source of incense in Asia and parts of Europe and currently occurs natu-

rally only in the heartwood of old growth trees, a vanishing resource all over the world.

It turns out this natural process was brought on by a particular fungus infecting the tree. Dr.

Blanchette, along with others, has been able to purposely initiate formation of agarwood inside young

planted trees, so that it can be planted as a sustainable plantation crop and harvested in as little as 4

years. The quality of the incense is comparable to that from older trees.

We are also in the process of booking Daniel Winkler, who leads "Mushroaming Tours" in Tibet,

travelling to the habitat of Cordyceps sinensis a.k.a. "Tibetan Viagra" and several others as well.

This year at NAMA, one of the offerings was a one-day Dyeing workshop with Dorothy Beebee,

Susan Hopkins, and Alissa Allen. I jumped at the opportunity and flew into California a day earlier to be in

the workshop. And because we were there earlier and the conference didn't actually start until later in

the day, we were able to go to the Monterrey Bay Aquarium with Gary Lincoff and his wife Irene as well

as some other friends we have met previously at NEMF in Pa.

We found a new meeting location, thanks to the efforts of Ellen Wan, our Publicity Chair. We'll be

meeting at the Intown Church right near Toco Hills shopping Center on Lavista Road near Houston Mill

Road. For those of you who had adopted the strategy of driving in earlier to avoid traffic and then getting

some shopping done at REI, I can suggest the nearby Kroger, Pikes Nursery, two local health food stores

and all the shops in Toco Hills as possible pre-meeting destinations to avoid the thick of traffic. We have

a nice large meeting room and plenty of parking.

At our Board meeting, we noticed that we have many many ideas and would love to hear from

people in the club willing to organize and spearhead them. This year, our club will be doing the brunt of

organizing the Oconee Foray. Some club members had expressed an interest in having a springtime for-

ay in Georgia for our club members. Sam Landes has been doing a lot of legwork as far as looking into

possibilities, but would definitely need more help if our club is to both organize Oconee and organize a

separate foray in the spring.

This year NAMA will take place closer to home, well, still not next door, but our good friend and

mentor, Jay Justice, will be organizing the conference in Arkansas, north of Little Rock in Harriet, AR.

For those of you considering driving, it is about a ten hour drive, with Birmingham and Memphis along

the route. The dates are Oct 24-26th, 2013.

NAMA is a great opportunity to meet other mushroom-loving people from all over the world. Every

conference has a number of smaller workshops on topics covering cultivation, poisoning, medicinal

mushrooms and more. Join us!

See you in the woods,

Cornelia Cho Club President

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We took old wooden dresser knobs of different sizes and painted them like

Amanita muscaria, drilled a hole through the top and strung them!

Megan Mauss

Blasts from the PastBlasts from the Past Revisit some of the things of interest that we’ve

shared via e-mails Click on these links!

Place Mushrooms in Sunlight to Get Your Vitamin D

Romantic Mushroom-Hunting Photos Steep Finnish Forest in Fantasy

Oyster Mushrooms on Diapers Woman Accidentally Poisons Her Whole Family With Wild Mushrooms

Cordyceps: attack of the killer fungi

Zombie Ants Back to the Roots: Mushrooms Grown on Coffee Grounds

And This!And This!

From: Daniel Winkler (April’s Speaker) Subject: RE: April looks good for GA and SC To: Cornelia Cho Date: Tuesday, February 12, 2013, 4:12 PM

Back from an awesome week in the rain forest. I added the talks to my webpages. Could you please check if I did

get it all right? Also please include my www.MushRoaming in the an-nouncement for the talk in your

webpages. ps: here my bio and a photo of

mine is also attached.

Daniel is the author of Field Guides to Edible Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest and California (Harbour Publishing 2011/2012). He grew up collecting and eating wild mushrooms in the Alps and has been forag-ing since 16 years in the PNW, where he is an active member of PSMS and working as mush-room educator and guide. Daniel trained as a geographer and ecologist and works as re-searcher and NGO consultant on environmental issues of the Tibetan Plateau and Himalayas [see www.danielwinkler.com ]. Working in Tibet, Daniel realized that Tibet’s diverse mushroom industry plays a crucial role in rural Tibet and thus has been researching Tibet’s ethno-mycology for 15 years and published widely on the subject, especially on Cordyceps sinensis. With his travel agency MushRoaming LLC he is annually organizing and leading several mush-room focused eco-tours to Tibet and South

America [www.mushroaming.com].

Megan Mauss and fellow mushroom

club member Peter Burry were

married in Dec with a mushroom-

themed wedding. They met through

MCG.

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Myco-cabulary Corner

#1 Annulus

A ring of tissue around the upper part of a mushroom’s stem, resulting from the

collapsing of a partial veil.

#2 Areolate

Cracked in age, like many of us.

Source http://www.mushroomexpert.com/

Attending the 2012 NAMA Foray By Sam Landes

This past December, Cornelia and I attended the 2012 North

American Mycological Association (NAMA) Larry Stickney Memorial

Foray. We had gone to the August 2011 Foray which was held in Eastern

Pennsylvania and had a wonderful time. The 2012 Foray was held in

Scotts Valley, California which is near Santa Cruz. We could not pass up

the opportunity to hunt mushrooms in the Redwoods.

NAMA has been holding annual forays since 1961 at different

locations around the country and in Canada. This year’s foray was orga-

nized by Noah Siegel, Christian Schwarz and Alissa Allen. The Foray was held at the Mission Springs Con-

ference Center from Thursday, Dec 13 through Sunday, December 16th.

We flew to San Francisco and rented a car to drive to Scotts Valley on Tuesday the 11th. Cornelia

participated in a day-long Dyeing with Mushrooms workshop on Wednesday. The workshop was led by Susan

Hopkins, Alissa Allen and Dorothy Beebee. Cornelia dyed wool (donated to her by Suzanne Rief) in many

vibrant colors. Cornelia will be bringing these wool samples as well as a silk scarf she dyed to our meetings

for display.

Many people had come early for the workshop and for the Trustees meeting held on Wednesday, so

we got to socialize with mushroom hunters we had met from other forays. Gary Lincoff and his wife, Irene,

organized a field trip Thursday morning to the Monterey Aquarium. It was a beautiful drive to Monterey, the

aquarium was impressive and afterward we shared a great seafood meal.

Each night featured different speakers expounding on a variety of

topics. Thursday night was an introduction to mushroom hunting in Cali-

fornia with a Naturalist’s guide to Santa Cruz County given by Chris Lay,

the director of the UCSC Natural History Museum. Noah and Christian,

former students at UCSC, gave a PowerPoint presentation of Mushrooms

of the Redwood Coast.

Christian Schwarz holding a large Amanita

Steve Trudell holding a large

Continued, next page

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Forays were held in nearby state parks, local natural are-

as and on the campus of UCSC. Cornelia and I found mushrooms

that are not found in Georgia. I found a Psuedohydnum gelatino-

sum which is the only known toothed jelly fungus (See picture

number 459 in the Audubon guide.) The foray ended up with over

300 species having been identified.

We made many connections with mycologists from

around the country and were able to recruit some speakers for our

meetings in 2013 and 2014. Daniel Winkler, who leads forays to

Tibet, has committed to our Speaker roster. Susan Hopkins is pos-

sibly going to speak to the club and lead a dyeing workshop. Mi-

chael Beug, who heads the toxicology part of NAMA, will be

coming and Tom Volk has expressed interest.

Each evening began with a summary of the interesting finds of the day. Friday evening’s talks

were by Dennis Desjardin and Else Vellinga. Dennis talked about his research on bioluminescent mush-

rooms and Else talked about the North American Mycoflora Project. Saturday night’s talk was by David

Arora, author of Mushrooms Demystified. He had adapted on old game wheel into the “Wheel of Mush-

rooms”. He invited members of the audience to spin the wheel and then he would tell stories and show pic-

tures relating to the mushrooms selected. He was engaging, entertaining and informative. I would highly

recommend MCG members considering attending a NAMA foray at least once for the experience.

And that leads me into this closing teaser – you now will not have to travel so far to attend the next

NAMA Foray! The 2013 Foray will be held October 24-27 at the Shepherd of the Ozarks. It is hosted by

the Arkansas Mycological Society and is being organized by our good friend Jay Justice.

David Arora’s “Wheel of the Fungi”