On Saturday, April 16, SVIMS had its first local, non-lichenized mushroom foray in more than two years. About two dozen people showed up at the back entrance to Royal Roads and spent two hours looking high and low for spring mushrooms. Steve Strybosch, Mel Hesz, and David Walde coordinated the registration and sign-in (and, we are happy to report, lost no one in the deep woods of suburban Victoria). Kem Luther and Andy MacKinnon came along to help with identification and Elora Adamson helped with the species photography and recording.
Fifteen mushrooms were found and IDed. You can see the list and pictures on iNaturalist. (The exact IDs of mushrooms posted on group sites such as Mushroom Observer and iNaturalist may change after posting as experts weigh in). One of the highlights of the foray was finding the beautiful snowbank orange peel cup fungus, Caloscypha fulgens. With a little encouragement from Andy, this ascomycete put on a dazzling display of spore dispersal. See the short clip in this post, courtesy of Mike Gold.
More to come on spring mushrooms, with a foray in Metchosin on Saturday, April 23, 10 am, and a Zoom talk on spring mushrooms on Thursday, April 28, 7 pm (see previous post for details about the talk).