Membership Meetings

Monthly meetings often have noted mycological speakers. Meetings are held on the 2nd Tuesday of the months September through June, excluding March, which is the month of our annual meeting. The time is 7:30 PM, and the location is the Center for Urban Horticulture, which is located at 3501 NE 41st St. in Seattle (driving directions).

You may come 20 minutes early to peruse a fine selection of nature books and field guides which are usually available, or to bring in mushrooms you have found to be identified. There is a brief period of announcements and business which is followed by the presentation.

* These meetings are open to the public.

Upcoming Meetings

February 14 - Ian Gibson will demonstrate his new and improved MatchMaker program. MatchMaker is a program to help identify mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest. It contains a database of almost 4000 descriptions of gilled and nongilled mushrooms. There is an interface for entering mushroom characteristics to find species that fit those characteristics. There are 2600 illustrations of 1050 gilled species, as well as 2000 illustrations of 800 nongilled species, from 150 different photographers.

Previous 2012 Meetings

January 10 - Duane Sept, an award-winning natural history photographer, biologist and freelance writer, will be our speaker this month. His photographs have been published internationally, in displays, books, magazines and other publications. His clients include BBC Wildlife, Parks Canada, Nature Canada, National Wildlife Federation and World Wildlife Fund. Duane teaches photography courses on nature, close-up and wildlife photography as well as leads nature photography tours.

His work as a biologist has included research on various wildlife species and as a park naturalist. His books, embracing a wide range of subjects including marine life, birds, butterflies, wildflowers and berries, includes Mushrooms of the Northwest: Alaska, Western Canada and the Northwestern United States

Previous 2011 Meetings

April 12 - Marian Maxwell and Cindy Rogers. Our current president is mentoring a high school student with an interest in mycology as a senior project. Their presentation is "The Role of Mushrooms in the Ecosystem," in which they will present what fungi are and how they compare and relate to plants and animals.

May 10 - Dr. Joe Ammirati, UW Professor of Botany and our Scientific Advisor, will speak on "Fungi Porcini," also known as ceps, steinpilze, and king boletes. These prized mushrooms can get quite large and are delicious to eat. Dr. Ammirati will cover the history of porcini, their distribution, host trees, evolution, uses, species, etc. and will probably throw in a few stories! He'll cover everything you need to go out and find them this summer and fall!

June 14 - Leon Shernoff is the founder and editor of Mushroom, the Journal of Wild Mushrooming. His presentation is "Boletes Come of Age," which features the amazing and colorful diversity of the boletes of eastern North America (yes, they have many more species there than we do out West). He will use boletes as examples in an introductory discussion of how and why name changes occur in the kingdom of fungi.

September 13 - Brian Luther, ace mushroom identifier, prolific writer on resupinate fungi, and long-time PSMS member, will present a Tribute to Dr. Daniel E. Stuntz, former UW Professor and our founding scientific advisor, who passed away in 1982. Most recent and new society members know little about Dr. Stuntz; this is your chance to learn more about this interesting and remarkable man who has trained so many of the current generation of mycologists.

October 11 - Our fall series of speakers continues with the dynamic duo of Daniel Winkler and Larry Evans. They will speak on The Fungi of Amazonia, sharing their photos, travel stories, and encounters with the exotic and often spectacular mushrooms of Bolivia and Ecuador. PSMS member Daniel Winkler is a popular lecturer at mushroom forays and gatherings and is a frequent speaker at PSMS, where he has enlightened and entertained us with accounts of his journeys to farflung places. Larry Evans is probably the original Fun Guy. He is the founder and fearless leader of the Western Montana Mycological Association, is a fixture at the Telluride Mushroom Festival, and edits the Fungal Jungle newsletter. He writes for Fungi magazine, is a contributing editor for Mushroom: the Journal of Wild Mushrooming, and appeared in the movie "Know Your Mushrooms."

November 8 - Dr. Denis Benjamin, physician, PSMS member, will speak to us on "Medicinal Mushrooms – Facts, Fiction and Faith." He was a consultant to the regional poison control center, a former member of the Board of Trustees of PSMS, and a past Chairman of the Toxicology Committee of NAMA. He is the author of the landmark book Mushrooms: Poisons and Panaceas on the health effects of mushrooms.

December 6 - Annual holiday party and cookie bash