Salt Spring foray by SVIMS members May 10 2025

On May 10th, 2025, members of the Mushroom Enthusiasts of Salt Spring Island (founded by Vail Paterson), together with experts from SVIMS, the South Vancouver Island Mycological Society (including their Mid
Island Chapter), and the VMS, the Vancouver Mycological Society, conducted a mycoblitz of the
Nature Conservancy Canada (NCC) Reginald Hill Conservation Area on Salt Spring Island. 

NCC permission was obtained to survey along designated trails of this 161-hectare woodland, and also to conduct a limited collection of fungi as necessary for identification purpose. 

Salt Spring’s Rosemarie Keough produced a detailed report of the event with many photos of the mushrooms found.

SVIMS Volunteer Appreciation Picnic 2025

The SVIMS Volunteer Appreciation Picnic (formerly President’s Picnic)  is an annual tradition where we gather with the SVIMS community to celebrate all those who volunteer their time and talents to make it all happen!
 
Please join us for a potluck-style picnic and prize draw! Sign up here.
 
Saturday, June 14th, 2025, 11:00am to about 3:00pm
 
11:00am to noon: arrival and socializing, set up your dish
Noon: lunch
After lunch: prize draw (Butchart Gardens tickets, t-shirts with new logo, edible mushrooms, mini survival kits + more.)

 

Location: Ourdoors, TBA

For: Active SVIMS members +1 guest
 
What to Bring
    • A dish (appetizer, side, main or dessert) for around 6-8 people. Please bring serving utensils and an ingredient list for your dish
    • Your own seating (blanket, chair, etc), cutlery, dishes, cup, napkins, and libations (Coffee, tea, and water provided.)
    • A guest, if you wish
    • Mushrooms to have identified and show off

SVIMS Foray to the Rae Leigh Addition April 2025

In 2024, BC Parks Foundation acquired a 15-acre parcel that adjoined John Dean Park. The parcel is slated to become part of the park.

SVIMS was invited to survey the biological diversity on this tract. On April 26, 2025, a group of SVIMS members made their way into the hilly area. (See adjoining map–The red outlines the addition, the green is John Dean Park.)

The walk was arranged by Mel Hesz. David Walde, Elora Adamson, Vail Paterson, and Ann McCall led the foray.

Results were collected in an iNaturist project that SVIMS set up for the tract. About 75 different species were recorded. Nearly 30 of these species were fungi.

Second SVIMS Spring Foray to Mechosin WP

Tiny (about 1 cm) eyelash cup fungi (Genus Scutellinia) were found on the ends of some downed tree trunks.

SVIMS members made a second spring foray to Metchosin Wilderness Park on May 3, 2025. A group of 25 fungal fans, several of them on their first SVIMS foray, spent two hours chasing down examples of spring fungi.

The walk was organized by Mel Hesz, Caroline Pap, and Ann McCall. Kem Luther and David Walde were walk leaders. Foray coordinators Ian and Tina Brown did the check-in, check-out.

An early advent of the dry season this year has made fungi hard to find. Still, searchers were able to turn up about 25 different species. The full list, with pictures, can be viewed on iNaturalist. 

(Click on the accompanying pictures to see the associated iNaturalist observations.)

Oyster mushroom (Genus Pleurotus)s, though not as abundant this year as in 2024, were dotted along Red Alder logs.
Someone found a beautiful, orange-dusted cap of the Plectania melastoma cup fungus.

SVIMS spring 2025 foray, John Dean Park

Cudonia circinans, common cudonia

SVIMS second foray of the spring season took place on Sunday, April 12, 2025, at John Dean CRD park. Since this venue was a regional park, the out-and-back walk was a look-but-don’t- collect venture. The walk was organized by Mel Hesz and Ann McCall. Kem Luther and Andy MacKinnon were walk leaders. Foray coordinators Ian and Tina Brown did the check-in, check-out (and managed not to lose anyone!).

Over the course of the morning, the 30 participants, several of them first-timers on a SVIMS foray, found 30 different species of fungi. The results were recorded in iNaturalist. The western Trillium was out, blooming and glorious.

Several of the finds are pictured in this post. (Click on the pictures to go to the corresponding iNaturalist pages). Almost as soon as the walk began, one of the foray participants spotted a clump of an ascomycete club, common cudonia. It responded when warmed with a puff of ascospores. 

Two different kinds of earth-tongues were found growing only a few metres from each other: the narrow and pointed black earth-tongue and the broad and densely hirsute heads of hairy earth-tongue. Tiny cups of Ciboria rufofusca speckled the surfaces of two different Doug-fir cones.  The largest “typical” mushroom of the day was the spring Nolanea holoconiota–it stood some 15 cm above the forest floor.

Ciboria rufofusca
Nolanea holoconiota, nippled brown pinkgill
Geoglossum umbratile, black earth-tongue
Trichoglossum hirsutum, hairy earth-tongue

Monthly Meeting May 1, 2025

7 pm – doors open
7:15-7:30 – meeting begins
3821 Cedar Hill X Rd, Victoria BC

A Conversation with a Chef turned Mushroom Farmer, Robin Jackson.

A discussion about gourmet mushroom cultivation, truffles, mycelium foods, and the evolution out of the kitchen and into the laboratory.