And you, whose pastime is to make midnight mushrooms…

The Herbarium hosted another successful iNaturalist event as part of our Plants and Fungi of Alaska project. Mycologist Dr. Gary Laursen led 56 mushroom enthusiasts on a mushroom hike on the ski trails at the UAF campus.  Folks went into the woods and hunted for mushrooms (parasitic, saprophytic and mycorrhizal). What a spectacular sight it was when everybody returned with their “harvest” and spread them out on several fold-up tables. There were coral fungi, tooth fungi (incl. the shingled hedgehog), polypores (commonly known as bracket fungi), boletes, and of course the agarics. Thanks so much Gary for introducing us to the wonderful world of Alaska mushrooms and helping us to distinguish harmless and edible fungi from the small number of poisonous ones.