Thur Mar 5, 2020 — Britt Bunyard speaks at SVIMS

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.

Log inoculation workshop SVIMS Mar 14-15 2020

SVIMS Log Inoculation Workshop

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.

Shiitake log by dominik18s (https://www.flickr.com/people/55571726@N05), used under CC Attribution 2.0 license

iNaturist Workshop, Sunday, March 8, 2020

SVIMS iNaturalist Workshop

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:

  • Create an iNaturalist account at inaturalist.ca
  • Download the iNaturalist app on your mobile phone.
  • Bring a laptop computer if you would prefer to use iNaturalist’s desktop website platform rather than the app (not required, but you might find it helpful)
  • Bring a hand lens (loupe) to learn how to turn your phone into a handheld macro lens

Minutes of Feb 6 SVIMS meeting

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).

Foray on February 8, 2020

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.

New Mycophile

SVIMS is a member of The North American Mycological Association (NAMA), the collective that unites the mycological societies on this continent.  Six times a year NAMA publishes its newsletter, the Mycophile, and makes it available to members of all supporting clubs.  The January/February 2020 issue was recently released.  To read it, click on the picture of the cover.