VIRTUAL EVENTS
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For members only: Taxonomy Tuesday, a local virtual foray, on Tuesday evenings, and other club virtual learning opportunities. Members will be sent an email for virtual events with their Zoom link to join the meeting. This is an all year-round event. |
Online LECTURE SERIES for 2023
Only NJMA Members will be sent a link to attend these lectures. So be sure to renew your 2023 NJMA membership.
Lectures will be listed when their arrangements have been confirmed.
Lectures will be listed when their arrangements have been confirmed.
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Thursday February 2, 2023 7pm
Gathering Knowledge: Mycophilia in American Culture at the Turn of the Twentieth Century Tracing popular mushroom foraging to the 1880s, this talk will discuss an early iteration of American mycophilia which brought a new population of non-professional mushroomers into the field. Like today, they sought a combination of gastronomic, scientific and personal enrichment. I argue that the mushroom fad legitimized women’s participation in citizen science by tethering foraging knowledge to elevated, economical cookery and as a public safety necessity to prevent poisoning. Enthusiastic laywomen claimed space and belonging as collectors, writers, illustrators, and club leaders. Yet while expanding opportunities for some, privileged mycologists’ insistence on certain forms of expertise fueled exclusion along class, race and ethnic lines. Ultimately, this research seeks to elucidate tensions surrounding sustenance, science and authority that remain with us to this day. |
Speaker: Madeline DeDe-Panken is a Ph.D. Candidate in U.S. History at The Graduate Center CUNY. With broad interests in negotiations of gender, knowledge and authority, her research explores scientific and sustenance mushroom foraging at the turn of the twentieth century. She has held fellowships at the New York Botanical Garden and New-York Historical Society Center for Women's History and currently resides in the Boston area, where she works at The Mushroom Shop helping people take full advantage of edible varieties.
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Thursday February 16, 2023 7pm
Dishing on the Cup Fungi Dr. Rosanne Healy will talk about travels and work to better understand the relationships, ecology, and life history of the group of fungi that we know as “the cup fungi”. These are the fungi that include the famous black perigord truffles, delectable morels, and iconic scarlet cups. They also include many lesser known, but fascinating truffles and cup-shaped, columniform, and saddle-shaped fungi. Rosanne has traveled and worked with Dr. Pfister and a team of truffle mycologists for twenty five years, tracking down data to help fill in the natural history of truffles and cup fungi, to better understand how they are related, what their ecologies are, and how their ancestors moved around to where they are now. |
Speaker: Dr. Rosanne Healy received her advanced degrees from Iowa State University and the University of Minnesota. She did post doctoral work with Don Pfister at Harvard. Her research centers on Pezizomycete systematics, with an emphasis on truffles. She has been working in the teaching program, and as a fungarium manager and research scientist in Matthew Smith’s Lab at the University of Florida since 2015.
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Thursday March 2, 2023 7pm
The Uses of Herbaria/Fungaria Using examples from research that has been done on specimens from the Farlow fungarium I will outline how these specimens contribute to modern taxonomic and systematic studies and how curatorial practices contribute to or distract from accurate study of collections. How was it possible to determine that a species suspected to be extinct was found to be widespread in eastern North America? What can collections tell us about the high and unexpected diversity of species of an often-collected genus of tropical fungi? Where was Charles Wright when he collected Puccinia triarticulataand how did he get there? These and other questions will be examined through the eye of a long serving curator. |
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Speaker: Don Pfister has been at Harvard University and the Farlow Library and Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany since 1974, after having been at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez from 1971. His Ph.D. was from Cornell University where he worked with Richard P. Korf. Aside from various administrative roles, his activities at the Farlow have centered on teaching and research, mostly on Ascomycota (Pezizomycetes, Leotiomycetes and Laboulbeniomyces), and stewardship of the Farlow collections. Over his career he has not only been responsible for the Farlow collections, but he also served as director of the entire Harvard University Herbaria, which numbers nearly 6 million specimens. The Farlow collections, which include not only fungi and lichenized fungi but also algae and bryophytes, include about 1.5 million specimens. As research collections these are priceless; they represent examples from every continent and some date from the late 18th Century. The stewardship of collections has led to an ongoing interest in exploration, expeditions and the people who participated in them. He has written several books and articles dealing with collections. These include: Annotated index to fungi described by N. Patouillard; Cryptogams of the United States North Pacific Exploring Expedition, 1853-1856: Unpublished manuscripts; A bibliographic account of exsiccatae containing fungi; A bibliography of taxonomic mycological literature 1753-1821 and several shorter articles that deal with collections and their accessibility to the research community. In all of these he has melded his research on fungi with the history and documentation of collections.
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Tuesday March 7, 2023 8pm
Under Pressure: Evolution Oddities in the Fungal World This lecture will highlight some of the fascinating traits fungi have evolved due to environmental pressures, and the strive to get ahead in the fungal world. This lecture is courtesy of MAWDC. 
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Speaker: Noah Siegel Noah’s field mycology skills are extensive – he has spent over three decades seeking, photographing, identifying, and furthering his knowledge about all aspects of macrofungi. He has hunted for mushrooms throughout the United States and Canada, as well as on multiple expeditions to New Zealand and Australia and Cameroon. He is one of the premier mushroom photographers in the nation, having won numerous awards from the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) photography contest. His technique and attention to detail are unrivaled, arising from a philosophy of maximizing utility for identification purposes while maintaining a high degree of aesthetic appeal. His photographs have appeared on the covers and have been featured in articles of multiple issues of FUNGI Magazine, the primary mushroom enthusiast magazines in the United States, numerous mushroom books, as well as many club publications. He authored, along with Christian Schwarz, Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast, a comprehensive guide for the northern California coast, and A field Guide to the Rare Fungi of California's National Forests. He is currently working on Mushrooms of Cascadia; a reference guide for Pacific Northwest fungi. Noah travels and lectures extensively across America, following the mushrooms from coast to coast, and everywhere in between.
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Thursday March 16, 2023 7pm
The Decay of the Wood Wide Web? The ‘wood-wide web’ has captured the interest of broad audiences. Common mycorrhizal networks, namely fungi that physically link roots of different trees together, are purported to be widespread and mediate transfer of resources and signals from trees to seedlings in forests. In this talk, Justine Karst challenges popular claims about the function of common mycorrhizal networks in forests and highlights the misinformation that has developed in recent years. |
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Speaker Justine Karst: Justine grew up in western Canada and was curious about forests from childhood on. From that curiosity, she completed a PhD in mycorrhizal ecology and, in 2016, joined the faculty at the University of Alberta, where she is Associate Professor. For the past 20 years, she has studied the mycorrhizal ecology of forests with a preference for the boreal region. She is currently Vice President of the International Mycorrhiza Society.
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Thursday March 30, 2023 7pm
Unveiling the Enigmatic Beauty of Cortinarius Do you love learning about mushrooms but have heard 'Cortinarius' are too hard? It doesn't have to be that way! Shannon is here to spread her love of the Cortinariaceae and to give you resources to help you get to know the species in your area. She will give us an update on Cortinarius taxonomy (including new genera that have been proposed), pointers on distinctive sub-genera and resources that will empower you to learn more. During the talk you will get to know some of our Cortinarius 'celebrities' and have new resources to work with when you find these diverse and beautiful species in your backyard. |
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Speaker: Shannon Adams is a User Researcher in the tech industry who has a passion for the genus Cortinarius. When she emigrated from Australia 20+ years ago she was struck by the diversity and beauty of Cortinarius species she saw in the Washington Cascades, and started trying (and failing) to identify them. For the past 6 years she has been collecting and documenting species in the region and has over 1,000 Cortinarius collections in her personal herbarium. In 2021 she led publication of a new Cortinarius species - Cortinarius rufosanguineus, has three other species in the publication pipeline and is currently collaborating with researchers on red-gilled Dermocybe.
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Thursday April 13, 2023 7pm
Seed - Fungal Relationships Plant-fungal interactions are ubiquitous. For a forest ecologist interested in how plant species are distributed, compete for resources, and defend against their natural enemies, fungi are difficult, if not impossible, to ignore. Furthermore, fungi are now known to infect all plant tissues – from their roots and sapwood to flowers, leaves and seeds. In many cases these internal infections of plants by ‘endophytic fungi’ occur either without adverse impacts on the plant host, or with impacts that vary depending on the identity of the host species. In my talk I will first review the breadth of endophytic fungal infections, and some of the impacts these have on their hosts. I will then describe the work we have been conducting in lowland tropical forest in Panama on the fungi that infect seeds of tree species that depend on soil seed banks to successfully regenerate after disturbance. Using a combination of carbon-dating, seed burial experiments, fungal culturing and inoculation experiments we have found a high degree of host specificity of seed fungi. These fungal infections can be viewed as the ‘primary symbionts’ that plants encounter, with impacts on seed germination and survival that are a consequence both of the fungi themselves, as well as bacteria that live within the fungal hyphae. Understanding how seed infecting fungi impact seed survival patterns can help us understand how tropical forest diversity is maintained, and also has applications for the protection of crop seeds and the management of weed species in agricultural systems. |
Speaker: James Dalling is a Professor of Tropical Ecology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama. He completed an undergraduate degree in Botany at Oxford University and a PhD at Cambridge University studying the regeneration of tropical montane forests in Jamaica. He moved to Panama as a post-doctoral researcher in 1992 and spent eight years working on seed dispersal and seedling ecology on Barro Colorado Island, a field station in the Panama Canal. This work led to the discovery that fungi are a major determinant of seed survival in the soil. Jim’s current research explores plant-mycorrhizal effects on species distributions in montane forests, the assembly of communities of wood decay fungi in terrestrial and aquatic habitats, and the host-specificity and demographic impact of seed-infecting fungi. His seed work has led to the discovery that fungi can have both mutualistic and pathogenic effects on seeds, depending on the host species they infect.
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Sunday April 30, 2023 11am
Mycological Illustration: History, Techniques, Problems In his lecture, Christian Volbracht will give an overview of the history of illustration of fungi in printed books. He will present numerous examples of printed drawings and paintings of mushrooms from Europe, America and Asia, covering five centuries, from 1491 to the present. He will explain the various printing techniques from woodcuts to colored copper engravings to colored lithography and modern printing, describing the progress of the different illustration methods. Of particular interest are the colored copper engravings of fungi in the 18th century by Bulliard, Sowerby and Schaeffer, which are still important today as first diagnoses of new species. Volbracht will also go over problems which can arise when using the old figures of mushrooms. |
Speaker: Christian Volbracht is a German journalist, amateur mycologist, and author and specialist in old mushroom literature. He has worked as a news journalist for the German Press Agency dpa for more than 40 years, including ten years as head of the agency's Paris office. Parallel to his career as a journalist, he collected mushroom books, compiled an important private library and built an online shop for antiquarian mushroom books. Eventually, he published MykoLibri, a comprehensive illustrated bibliography of his collection, covering works from the 15th to the 20th centuries. The two volumes of MykoLibri are now recognized as the standard bibliography for mycological literature - for collectors, dealers, researchers and librarians. Recently, Volbracht wrote a book on the scientific and cultural history of truffles. He lives in Hamburg, Germany.
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Thursday May 11, 2023 7pm
Foraging Edible Wild Mushrooms for the Beginner; Develop your Foolproof Few Foraging for wild mushrooms has become a favored pastime for nature-minded people of all ages. The single thing that holds a novice mycophile back is the fear of being poisoned. There are a number of toxic mushrooms that can make you sick and a small number, dangerously ill. This presentation will introduce you to the concept of “Foolproof Mushrooms”, a group of mushrooms that are common, easily identifiable and without toxic look-alikes. It will also address some of the common mistakes that people later regret. Join us for an evening of learning a handful of “Foolproof" edible mushrooms and some guidance to avoid becoming a toxic mushroom statistic. |
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Speaker: Greg Marley, LCSW has been studying, growing, collecting, cooking and eating wild mushrooms for more than 45 years. He shares his love of mushrooms through lectures, workshops and walks on mushroom identification, culture and ecology to hundreds of hopeful mycophiles as well as consulting in cases of mushroom poisoning with poison centers in New England. Greg is the author of Mushrooms for Health; Medicinal Secrets of Northeastern Fungi (2009) and Chanterelle Dreams, Amanita Nightmares, The Love Lore and Mystique of Mushrooms (2010). He lives and mushrooms along the coast of Maine where he has been a Director of the Maine Mycological Association for some time, and regularly teaches mushroom identification at Eagle Hill. When not mushrooming Greg works as a mental health clinician, trainer and consultant in suicide prevention and management.
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Sunday, May 21, 2023 11am
Dung Loving Cup Fungi Dung Loving Cup Fungi is an overview of the colorful and less known species of the order Pezizales growing on dung from various animals. Genera, species, morphology and recent taxonomy will be discussed. |
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Speaker: Björn Wergen is founder and director of Schwarzwälder Pilzlehrschau, a mushroom school in Hornberg in the Black Forest, southern Germany. The school offers mycology courses and seminars from beginner to advanced levels. He has been studying fungi since 1994 and has a focus on morphology, taxonomy and photographic documentation. Wergen is author of the
monumental Handbook of Ascomycota, Volumes 1a & 1b: Pyrenomycetes s.l. (2018). |
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Thursday June 1, 2023 7pm
Mycological Mexico: Oaxaca edition Mexico is one of the most climate diverse countries in the world and it has been estimated that indigenous Mexicans consume about 300 species of edible mushrooms across its eight climatic regions; All eight climates are found in the Southern State of Oaxaca. Despite its inclusion geographically in North America, the country of Mexico can seem quite foreign in its attitudes toward mushrooms and mushroom foraging when compared to the US or Canada. The difference, even more pronounced in Oaxaca, is more than just a language barrier, though that plays a significant role; despite Spanish being the dominant language, there are more than 16 official language groups throughout this state alone. More than half of the political regions in Oaxaca are self-governed autonomous democracies. There are no mushroom picking permits: nothing can be removed from the land, or even access granted, without express permission of the community. And yet, their knowledge of mushrooms and even mycology is vast and has been known since time immemorial. In this presentation, Chef Zachary Mazi attempts to tackle the barriers in understanding this delicate relationship, and discusses the intricate web of food-life-forest-community that underlies the unique management of these diverse and incredible ethnomycological regions whose wisdom holds so much potential for the rest of North America. |
Speaker: Zachary Hunter is a lifelong devotee to flavor, a professionally trained chef who has been obsessed with mushrooms and uncovering the unknown with regards to edible mushroom chemistry and physiology. He is a member of the NAMA's (North American Mycological Association) Culinary Committee). He lives in Oaxaca, Mexico with his wife Kim, where they run MycoAdventures in the mountains of Oaxaca and beyond.
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Sunday June 4, 2023 1:30pm to 3:00 pm
Edible Wild Foods (In-Person and Virtual Event) Join teacher/naturalist/NJMA Member Dorothy Smullen for an illustrated indoor presentation on edible wild foods. This will be a hybrid program offered as an in-person and a zoom meeting by NJ Audubon - Scherman Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary. All particpants must pre-register by June 2. Walk-ins will be turned away. Up to 50 NJMA members will be able to join the zoom for FREE by signing up using the instructions previously sent to NJ Members from WildFoodsLecture@njmyco.org. For in-person attendance and for anyone else who wishes to attend this lecture virtually, sign up and pay using this link NJ Audubon. In-person attendees will also see display items, receive handouts and go on a short walk on the trails at Scherman Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary. |
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Thursday June 15, 2023 7pm
Three Microfungi that Changed the World To celebrate the publication of “The Hidden Kingdom of Fungi,” my recent book for general readers, I will present three stories in depth to show the profound effects of fungi (or “phungi”) can have on human affairs. We will follow the path of the Great Potato Famine from its origins to the Irish diaspora of millions of victims to Canada and the USA. We will look at the discovery of penicillin and its impacts on World War II and conflicting concepts of intellectual property. Then we will look at some global aspects of wheat rust. These stories show that the impacts of fungi and fungal research extend far beyond the corridors of science. |
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Speaker: Keith Seifert. For more than 40 years, Canadian mycologist Keith Seifert specialized in the identification and classification of microscopic fungi producing toxins in crops and foods. He worked as a Research Scientist for Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada in Ottawa from 1990-2019. His academic publications include >250 scientific papers and six books. He retired from research in 2019 to write about interactions between science, the arts, history and society and is now an adjunct professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.
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Last Updated: 2023-05-24
