SVIMS Meeting February 6, 2025 Paul Kroeger

7 pm start
Zoom only due to weather, members will receive a link

A Presentation by
 Paul Kroeger 

Paul has spoken to our club many times before, often in February. He is always entertaining and informative. Look below his photo to find out more about him. Paul’s presentation will be

Mushroom Misadventures

Mushroom cases with poison control BCCDC / DPIC. This is a review of interesting cases that show ways people get into trouble eating mushrooms, problems in identifying what people have eaten and some interesting observations and lessons on how to avoid illness from eating wild mushrooms.

Paul Kroeger has studied mushrooms for over fifty years and is a founding member of the Vancouver Mycological Society (VMS). Paul served as President of VMS for a few years, and is currently President of The Pacific Northwest Key Council. He is a major contributor to the mycological herbarium collections in the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at UBC and also contributed significant collections to DAOM Herbarium in Ottawa and DAVFP Herbarium in Victoria. He is a regular consultant for the British Columbia Drug and Poison Information Centre, and various other agencies concerned with mushroom poisonings and fungi in human and animal health. He coauthored, with Bryce Kendrick, Oluna Ceska and Christine Roberts, The Outer Spores: Mushrooms of Haida Gwaii published in 2012 based on a five-year study.

SVIMS Meeting December 5, 2024 Kem Luther & Andy MacKinnon

7pm – doors open
7:15-30pm – presentation begins

St Luke’s Hall
Victoria – 3821 Cedar Hill X Rd, Victoria, BC

  • Monthly Membership Meeting
  • Live streamed/hybrid – members will receive zoom link by email
  • Bring mushrooms to be identified by local experts
  • Snacks, tea, socialize!

Presentation:

“Fairies and Fungi: A Festive Ecology of BC”

Kem Luther & Andy MacKinnon

It’s December, and Andy and Kem are ready to put you in the holiday spirit!  Find out what makes Santa’s reindeer fly, how frost makes beards, where tipsy fairies toss their cookies, and how to escape from the fatal fairy ring.

Andy MacKinnon. Andy’s recent research interests include ecology of BC’s ectomycorrhizal fungal species. He was lead BC scientist for Environment Canada’s 2017 ranking of the province’s threatened and endangered fungal species. Andy has taught rainforest ecology field courses in Bamfield and Tofino (for the University of Victoria) and Haida Gwaii (for UBC). He has also taught mushroom identification courses in Tofino (for the Rainforest Education Society) and in Victoria. He is co-author of six best-selling books about plants of western North America and co-author of the Royal BC Museum Handbook Mushrooms of British Columbia. He is past-president of the South Vancouver Island Mycological Society (SVIMS).

Kem Luther. Kem is a naturalist and writer. He grew up in the Nebraska Sandhills, studied at Cornell, the University of Chicago, and the University of Toronto, and taught at Eastern Mennonite University, Sheridan College, York University, and the University of Toronto. When he moved from a home on Ontario’s Grand River to the southern tip of Vancouver Island in 2004, he developed an abiding passion to know the mushrooms of western North America. Besides Mushrooms of British Columbia, Kem is the author of six books, including Boundary Layer (Oregon State University Press, 2016). He has been secretary and speaker coordinator for the South Vancouver Island Mycological Society (SVIMS).

Kem and Andy, who both live in Metchosin, BC, are cofounders of the Metchosin Biodiversity Project (metchosinbiodiversity.com). They are enthusiastic participants, speakers, and field trip leaders for various mushroom festivals in southwestern BC each autumn.

SVIMS Cowichan Foray 2024

Ann McCall and Andy MacKinnon congratuate themselves on finishing the labels.

The annual SVIMS weekend at Cowichan, held again at the Cowichan Lake Education Centre, took place on October 25-27. Overall, it was a rainy weekend, but the showers paused for the morning and afternoon forays on Saturday. The event this year was organized and coordinated by Elora Adamson.

As in other years, there was a dinner at a Cowichan restaurant on Friday night. Some eager SVIMS people did a mushroom flashlight walk. On Saturday, the weekend attendees were joined by many who came only for the Saturday forays, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Bryce Kendrick and Shannon Berch take a closer look at some of the mushrooms.

As the mushroom specimens began to arrive, a team at the display room under the direction of Shannon Berch labeled the mushrooms and arranged them on the tables by morphological groups. Bryce Kendrick brought his microscope and examined the spores and microscopic features of some of the specimens.

More than 150 different species were IDed. The list can be viewed on the svimsinatadmin site. As usual, the totals may change as people from around the world chime in with ID suggestions. 

Sunday morning was the usual sharing event, with people telling about their favourite finds.

The asci of Tolypocladium capitatum seen under Bryce’s microscope.

This year a special attempt was made to ugrade the citizen science component. We were able to record all of the finds on iNaturalist, combining multiple field pictures with IDs made and more photos taken in the display room. About ten SVIMS members took on the tasks of field recording. Approximately 20 of the specimens were dried and sent in for sequencing.

Two Speakers in November 2024

This month we have not one but two speaker events. The first, on Thursday November 7, features our own Richard Winder, and the second, on Saturday November 9, features the editor of FUNGI magazine, Britt Bunyard.  Both have spoken to our meeting in previous years. See full information below.

Britt Bunyard at Nov 9 2024 SVIMS Meeting

St Luke’s Hall, 3821 Cedar Hill X Rd Victoria  6pm start 

Title: A Resilient Planet Needs Fungi NOW

Overview: Fungi are weird, fungi are cool, and fungi are beautiful. But how much do we really know about them? For starters, they do much more than just rot things. They control pretty much all life on our planet and are everywhere. Britt Bunyard’s lecture will present fascinating stories and beautiful photos of amazing fungi featured in his latest book. Discover the crazy, wonderful life that goes on all around us, mostly hidden in plain sight. For general audiences, no knowledge of mycology is required, and all levels of mycological questions are encouraged for the Q&A. This lecture is based on features from Bunyard’s new book, The Lives of Fungi, A Natural History of Our Planet’s

Britt Bunyard, PhD, is the founder, Publisher, and Editor-in-Chief of the mycology journal Fungi, in print since 2008. Britt is a former university professor and has published over 100 academic and popular science papers. He has served as an editor for mycological and entomological research journals, and mushroom guide books.

A popular evangelizer on all things fungal, Britt has given more than 250 invited lectures to academic and popular audiences across North America and beyond. He has been featured on the BBC World Service’s Newshour, NPR’s All Things Considered, PBS’s NOVA and Wisconsin Foodie television programs; and interviewed or quoted in Discover magazine, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Vox, Vogue, Forbes, Saveur, Eating Well, Hobby Farm, Women’s World, and other magazines and newspapers.

Britt has collected fungi and lectured throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Annually, he leads mycological expeditions throughout the world. One such expedition, was the subject of a documentary film “Look Down Not Up” (2022), produced by documentary filmmakers Alok Siddhi Tuladhar and Dusty Shiva Panthi of Kathmandu, Nepal.

Britt has authored several books, including The Little Book of Fungi (2024; Princeton University Press), Lives of the Fungi (2022; Princeton University Press), The Beginner’s Guide to Mushrooms (2021; Quarry Books), Amanitas of North America (2020; The Fungi Press), and Mushrooms and Macrofungi of Ohio and Midwestern States (2012; The Ohio State University Press).

Britt has served as Executive Director of the Telluride Mushroom Festival since 2014. In 2021 he was awarded the Gary Lincoff Award “For Contributions to Amateur Mycology,” by the North American Mycological Association—NAMA’s most prestigious honor for American mycologists.

Richard Winder at Nov 7 2024 SVIMS Meeting

This is one of the two SVIMS Presentations in November: the other will be on Saturday Nov 9 with Britt Bunyard, editor of Fungi Magazine. And before those, the Mushroom Show Oct 20 and the Cowichan Foray Oct 25-27. And don’t forget the SVIMS 2025 Calendar.

On Thursday November 7, Richard Winder will talk with us about Mushrooms for All Seasons, his new 4 book series. Look below his photo for the exciting details: not only recipes, but culinary history, biology, and nutrition. He has been cooking up these books for several years and they will finally be available in 2024.

In person and zoom 
St Luke’s Hall, 3821 Cedar Hill X Rd Victoria 
7pm doors open, 7:15 start, end by 9:30 pm 
Richard Winder, Mushrooms for All Seasons

Richard will discuss the highlights of his four book series, titled “Mushrooms for All Seasons.”  Instead of a field guide or a plain recipe book, Richard has written a series of books that take an in-depth look at the most popular edible mushrooms available in B.C. (and elsewhere). Grouped into the four seasons they are available, mushroom chapters in book take a deep dive into relevant biological, ecological, historical, and nutritional information. As well, each mushroom chapter presents  a savory and enjoyable collection of classical and modern recipes. Highlights Richard will discuss at the talk include the way morels were prepared in the Roman Empire, the traditional way that the Mixtec people of Mexico cook lobster mushrooms, the fascinating ways wealthy people of Medieval Europe liked to consume truffles (as aphrodisiacs), and how fish sauce from Asia led to the evolution of mushroom ketchup and eventually the tomato condiment we all know today.  Whether your mushrooms are wild-harvested or purchased at the grocery store, every season brings a new set of mushrooms to cook and enjoy!