Naturalist Certificate Program class N566

Identification of Gilled Mushrooms

Saturday, 22 July 2006, 9:00AM — 4:00PM

Patrick Leacock, Adjunct Curator, The Field Museum

Venture into the Arboretum woods to explore the incredible diversity and ecology of our local fungi. You will learn the key identifying characteristics of gilled mushrooms. We will also discuss collecting mushrooms for study, making spore prints, using a microscope, and using identification keys. Dress for the weather. Bring lunch and beverage. Location: Room E, Thornhill.

The required textbook has changed. We will be using: Mushrooms of Northeast North America, by George Barron, 1999, Lone Pine Publishing. This book is available at the Arboretum store and other bookstores.

Before class please read through introductory material listed below right.

Collecting supplies are listed at the right. Basically you need paper bags (lunch bags, etc.) or wax paper to hold the mushrooms. A knife is useful for digging the base of the mushroom out of the ground or cutting a mushroom off from a log. Note paper is used for recording notes on habitat and substrate (what the mushroom was growing on).

Suggested Field Guides (not required for class)

• George Barron. 1999. Mushrooms of Northeast North America: Midwest to New England. Lone Pine Publ., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
• Orson K. Miller Jr. and Hope H. Miller. 2006. North American Mushrooms: A Field Guide to Edible and Inedible Fungi. FalconGuide, The Globe Pequot Press, Guilford, Connecticut.
• Roger Phillips. 2005 Second Printing. Mushrooms of North America. Little, Brown and Company, Boston.
• David Arora. 1986 Second Edition. Mushrooms Demystified. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, California.
• Alan E. Bessette, Arleen R. Bessette, and David W. Fischer. 1997. Mushrooms of Northeastern North America. Syracuse University Press, New York.
• Gary H. Lincoff. 1981. The National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.