The South Vancouver Island Mycological Society meets September through May (except January) at 7:00 pm at the Pacific Forestry Centre. Visitors welcome. List of previous speakers.
All further meetings of the membership have been suspended till further notice. The cancellation will include the Chinese Mushroom Dinner for March 21st and the General Membership meeting and foray in the first week of April.
We will be proceeding with the Log Inoculation Workshop this Saturday, March 14th.
Britt Bunyard, editor of Fungi Magazine, made another visit to SVIMS in March. Britt gave an amazing presentation on Amanitas (his book on North American Amanitas will be out in 2 months and his beginner’s guide to mushrooms in the fall.) A version of his talk is available on YouTube.
On Saturday, March 7, 2002, about 30 SVIMS members joined Britt and Andy for a fungal walk through Metchosin’s Blinkhorn Park. The group found over 30 species. These were entered into the Metchosin Biodiversity Project database of observations and species. You can view the species and pictures at the Project’s iNaturalist site.
The new (March-April 2020) edition of the NAMA Mycophile has been sent to SVIMS for its members to read.
We have a not-to-be missed presentation coming up on Thursday, Mar 5, 2020, 7:00pm. Britt Bunyard, editor of Fungi Magazine, will be here for a presentation and foray. His talk will be “From Lowly Saprobe to Mycorrhizal Masters: Amanitas (A Tale Told in the DNA).”
See poster below for more information.
Those of you who have heard Britt before (he was here three years ago) will know how good his talks are. For many years, Britt has been a roving ambassador for serious (and sometimes funny) mycology.
The foray, led by Britt and Andy, will be at Metchosin’s Blinkhorn Lake, which is on Kangaroo Road. Note the time–it will be on Saturday, March 7, from 1 to 3 pm.
SVIMS Log Inoculation Workshop
This will be run by Steve Fischer.
Members only.
Dates and Time:
Saturday March 14th.
The first at 9:00, the second at 13:30
Sunday March 15th.
Depending on the number of registrations on the 14th, an extra class a consideration at 13:30.
Cost: by donation.
Registration: Contact Steve by email. The location/address and details of the event will be provided by him upon registering.
Help document biodiversity in BC’s parks with the BC Parks iNaturalist Project
Date: Sunday March 8th, 2020
Time: 3:15pm – 5:30 pm
Place: Swan Lake Nature House
Cost: by donation
iNaturalist is used worldwide to crowdsource and share biodiversity observations: users take photos of flora, fauna, and fungi using their mobile phones or cameras and upload those images to inaturalist.ca, and iNaturalist’s image recognition software and user community can help identify the organism. Kelly Fretwell and Naomi Salie from the BC Parks Foundation will guide you through the process of using iNaturalist to make great citizen science observations of the fascinating fungi, lichens, and slime moulds you come across while out exploring, and to share your own species identification expertise.
Learn about how SVIMS members can get involved in citizen science through the BC Parks iNaturalist Project. This project now has more than 116,000 observations of 5,000 species, thanks to the photo and identification contributions of over 2,700 citizen scientists. By contributing to this project you can create an interactive record of your outdoor explorations while also generating data that helps researchers develop a deeper understanding of what our parks are protecting.
Those with expertise can also share their knowledge and help others identify what they found: the skills and knowledge of SVIMS members would be particularly valuable in determining the often more elusive identities of fungi, lichens, and slime moulds found by other observers.
The afternoon will include a guided stroll in Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary to find and photograph species, so be sure to bring a smart phone or camera to take photos.
Recommendations & optional equipment to prepare for this event:
At the Thursday, February 6, 2020 meeting, members got to hear Joey Tanney, researcher at the Pacific Forestry Centre, expound on a topic he truly loves: endophytes.
Minutes of the meeting can be viewed here (attention: contains announcements of upcoming events).
On Saturday, February 8, 2020, Andy MacKinnon led a SVIMS foray to Metchosin Wilderness Park.
About 20 SVIMS members attended.
After many days of rain, the weather cooperated. We had sunshine the whole morning.
Several of the foray participants found late-blooming Hedgehog mushrooms (Hydnum umbilicatum). Bill Weir knew where to find them!
Participants found 32 different mushrooms. Some of them are pictured in the group shot (above or at the left).
The species list can be viewed here. It’s on iNaturalist–we welcome any help in getting more accurate identifications.
Highlights included a brilliant yellow Chrysomphalina grossula, an unusual find. Finding Mycena sanguinolenta on a cone was also unusual. The Earthtongues (Geoglossum umbratile) attracted considerable interest, as did the black cup fungus Pseudoplectania melaena (which iNaturalist insists on calling Plectania melaena). Andy could barely contain his excitement at seeing Phlebia tremellosa (called Merulius tremellosus on iNaturalist) on a standing dead red alder.
