SVIMS 2025 Mushroom Show, Royal BC Museum, Nov 2, 10 am-4 pm
SVIMS
South Vancouver Island Mycological Society
Monthly Meeting October 2, 2025
Pacific Forestry Centre
506 Burnside Road West
Victoria BC V8Z 4N9
Doors open at 6:30pm to socialize and identify mushrooms.
Noah Siegel
will share with us
Adventures of a Mycohobo
Noah is one of North America’s foremost field mycologists; he has spent over three decades seeking, photographing, identifying, and furthering his knowledge about all aspects of macrofungi. He travels and lectures extensively across America, following the mushrooms from coast to coast.
Noah was the recipient of the 2022 North American Mycological Association’s Award for Contributions to Amateur Mycology. His primary research interest is on the taxonomy and systematics of fungi.
He authored, along with Christian Schwarz, Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast, a Comprehensive Guide to the Fungi of Coastal Northern California and Mushrooms of Cascadia, a Comprehensive Guide to Fungi of the Pacific Northwest, as well as co-authoring A Field Guide to the Rare Fungi of California’s National Forests. He is currently working on Mushrooms of Alaska, with Steve Trudell and Kate Mohatt.
Monthly Meeting September 4, 2025
The September 4 monthly meeting will be at a new location:
Pacific Forestry Centre
506 Burnside Road West
Victoria BC V8Z 4N9
Doors open at 6:30pm to socialize and identify mushrooms.
Leah Bendlin
will speak with us about
Common Fall Mushrooms and their Lookalikes
See more details about her below the poster and description of the presentation.
In this presentation, we will learn some of the most common and memorable mushrooms found in fall in the Pacific Northwest. We will focus especially on common edibles and how to tell them apart from poisonous or just otherwise tricky potential lookalikes, noting particular physical features and habitats that will help you to identify them on your own.
Leah Bendlin is a Portland based mushroom and community science enthusiast. She caught the mycology bug after her first outing hunting chanterelles with a friend. She was amazed at the diversity of other mushrooms that day, and set out to learn the science of identification. That curiosity proved insatiable, and now, 12 years later, she has become an expert taxonomist and aspires to learn the name of every mushroom she encounters, and delights in teaching others. Leah has special interests in taxonomy, uncommonly known edibles, mycoheterotrophic plants, slime molds, ascomycetes (cup fungi) and social justice. She regularly leads mushroom ID classes and walks through various Pacific Northwest organizations and has volunteered as a teacher, identifier and board member of the Oregon Mycological Society. You can find her Instagram page, focused primarily on teaching mushroom species of the Pacific Northwest at