Good evening, friends,
This past weekend I attended the Northeastern Mycological Federation’s Sam Ristich Annual Foray in Hyannis, MA. My aunt was also celebrating her *0th birthday in Falmouth, about thirty minutes away, so I spent the weekend walking the tight rope that is neglecting family activities in search of mushrooms (happy birthday Aunt Julie, of course). While conditions have been dry in the northeast, the area received a couple inches of rain earlier in the week which spawned plenty of mushrooms to fill the ID tables.
The foray was held out of the Cape Cod Irish Village at the Emerald Resort (rolls off the tongue) which turned out to be the Ritz-Carlton of mushroom forays. The food was actually pretty solid and they even had a sit-down dinner on Saturday night. Staff were bussing the tables when we were done with plates and even going around with coffee after the meal. I was sipping decaf and taking in the keynotes, not bad at all.
I didn’t stay the nights, I had aunt birthdays to attend to of course, but I heard good thing about the room accommodations as well. All in all a great showing from the ol’ CCIVatER. Most importantly, I learned a bunch of new mushrooms, so now we can all learn a bunch of new mushrooms which is what it’s all about. Let’s take a look:
Shaggy bracket (Inonotus hispidus)
Buttery Collybia (Rhodocollybia butyracea)
Conifercone Cap (Baeospora spp.)
Sphagnum Brownie (Hypholoma elongatum?)
Yellowleg Bonnet (Mycena epipterygia)
Blood-red Cortinarius (Cortinarius sanguineus)
Surprise webcap (Cortinarius semisanguineus)
Knights (Tricholoma spp.)
Spicy Suillus (Suillus punctipes)
Painted Suillus (Suillus spraguei)
Puffball (Calvatia spp.)
I caught a couple of the talks on Saturday as well. An impressive presentation on the lichen of Cape Cod by Tom Walker followed by an inspirational presentation on medicinal mushrooms by Cornelia Cho. I was a good boy and spent Sunday with the family so I didn’t catch the third day of the foray. Hope folks found Matsutake.
While I was out there I realized that Saturday was the four year to-the-day anniversary of Mushroom Monday. We’ve got over a thousand readers and have learned about nearly 200 individual mushrooms. What a journey. Here’s to another four? Hopefully. I left the foray very motivated and excited for the future of MM. I should have some exciting updates this winter :)
Full moon this Thursday - the largest of the year based on the moon’s proximity to earth,
Aubrey