MUSHROOM EXPLORATION!

Description

Join Dr. Henry Van T. Cotter for an introduction to mushrooms, their identification, and ecology!

After a brief overview, attendees will venture into the gardens and nature preserve to search for mushrooms and collect samples for further examination. The session will end with a display of the specimens gathered, including a discussion of their taxonomy, ecology, and utility as food or mycomedicinals. Many mushrooms fruit in the late summer/early fall. So, weather willing, there should be an abundance of different species to discover!

Participants are encouraged to bring:

• Wild mushroom samples collected from their home property

• A basket to hold samples collected at Fernwood

• Weather appropriate shoes and clothing

• Water, sunscreen, and insect repellent

About Dr. Henry Van T. Cotter:

Van’s friends and family know well that a hike with him means delving off the path to search for fungi. His love for mushrooms is infectious (case in point: this year he helped his 3- and 5-year-old next door neighbors inoculate maple logs with lion’s mane mushroom spawn). Van’s passionate interest in fungi began when he was assistant manager on a fruit tree farm in Michigan watching beautiful cherries succumb to fungal brown rot. Between stints on the fruit farm, he took Introductory Mycology at the University of New Hampshire and his future path studying and working with fungi was set.  For his graduate degrees he studied beech bark disease in New England and then boletes (friends of the forest) in Nepal under a Fulbright Grant receiving a Ph.D. from Virginia Tech. After a career in crop protection research, he has been active as a mycological volunteer including helping catalog the wealth of valuable fungal type collections in the NCU Herbarium, investigating equine fungal infections, and documenting the fungal biodiversity of Michigan’s Nature Sanctuaries. Through the USAID Farmer-to-Farmer program, he assisted mushroom farmers from around the world. He is looking forward to showing you more about the world of mushrooms.

Suggested Audience: Teens-adults

Location: Flora Wing of the Sims Education Center