SPORE PRINTS BULLETIN OF THE PUGET SOUND MYCOLOGICAL SOCIETY Number 469 February 2011 SURVIVORS’ BANQUET Patrice Benson & Milt Tam toxic mushrooms, and mushrooms as a hobby (cooking, arts and crafts, etc.). The Intermediate series focuses on identification skills Our Survivors’ Banquet and Annual and the commonly found mushrooms in the PNW. The room holds Business Meeting will be held on 40, so the classes are limited to that number for each series. Please Saturday, March 19, at the Center for bring mushrooms if possible to all classes. Urban Horticulture. Appetizers and beverages start at 6:30 pm and dinner The beginner series are repeats of the previous series. Class sizes at 7:30 pm, with the the meeting con- are limited to 40, so we have multiple offerings of the same series. cluding at 9:30 pm. Our new officers, A series is four classes given on consecutive weeks. board members, and Golden Mush- You may register for any series by following the directions below. room recipient will be presented at that time. Our theme will be Please include your name, phone number, and e-mail address “Celebrating Scandinavia!” We are asking people to bring potluck with your class registration check. These classes are a benefit of items that feature foods that are typical of Norway, Sweden, and membership, so please join PSMS to participate. Denmark. We will have several raffle baskets on which you may bid, with the proceeds benefiting the Ben Woo Scholarship Fund. Location: The classes are being held in the Douglas classroom at We will also have door prizes, and those who register ahead of the Center for Urban Horticulture. time will get an extra ticket for the door prizes! The extra tickets Cost: The cost for each series of four classes is $40, and the classes will be given out the evening of the banquet. are available to members only. PSMS member Sara Nelson, who works at the Fremont Brewing To register for a class series: Make checks payable to PSMS for Company, has generously offered to donate a keg of beer from the Brewery for the occasion. Thank you, Sara! And, yes…we will $40 and send to: have a banquet permit for the evening so that you can BYO. Patrice Benson The cost will be $5 per person. This will cover incidentals as 3818 Cascadia Ave. S well as give us an idea of how many people will be attending. Seattle, WA 98118 We will not turn anyone away at the door, but only those who To become a PSMS member: Download and fill out the member- register ahead of time will be guaranteed to have a seat. Last year ship form at http://www.psms.org/join.html and send it, along with it was difficult to find seating for people who decided to come at your check, to the address on the form. the last minute. The cost of membership is $30 per year for singles or families; You can pay at the Membership table at $20 for students. Please do not send membership checks with the February meeting or you can send your class registration. your check payable to PSMS to Andrea Rose, 5819 SW Horton, Seattle, WA Questions? e-mail [email protected] or call Patrice Benson 98116. If you have questions you can at 206–819–4842. call her at 206-933-0838. We look forward to seeing you there! Will we have fun? Ya sure, you bet- YARSA GUMBA MURDER TRIAL Joanna Jolly cha! BBC News, Kathmandu, Jan. 4, 2011 The people of a remote Himalayan village in Nepal are awaiting the verdict of a murder trial over a rare, highly prized fungus, LEARN MORE ABOUT MUSHROOMS Cordyceps sinensis, known locally as yarsa gumba. For the past Patrice Benson 500 years, yarsa gumba has been prized as an aphrodisiac by the An additional Beginning Mushroom Identification Class has Chinese and sells for thousands of US dollars per kilo, making it been added to our spring mushroom class schedule. The dates the most valuable commodity in this remote region. are Thursdays, April 7, April 14, April 21, and April 28, 2011, In June 2009, a group of 36 men from the village of Nar are ac- from 7–9 pm in the Douglas classroom of UW Center for Urban cused of killing seven people who had come from outside the area Horticulture. to collect yarsa gumba. There is still space in our Intermediate Mushroom Identification Because most of the men from the village are in jail, there is no class, which will be held Thursdays, March 10, March 17, March one left behind to work. “Our land is barren now,” says the sister 24, and March 31 from 7–9 pm. of one of the jailed men. “There is no one to plough the fields.” The beginner series covers basics of mushroom hunting, identifi- A verdict in the case of the yarsa gumba murders is expected in cation, common mushrooms of the PNW, mushroom toxins and February. page 1 MEMBERSHIP MEETING Tuesday, February 8, 2011, at 7:30 pm at the Center for Urban Spore Prints Horticulture, 3501 NE 41st Street, Seattle. is published monthly, September through June by the The first speaker for February is our very PUGET SOUND MYCOLOGICAL SOCIETY own PSMS member Daniel Winkler. Center for Urban Horticulture, Box 354115 Although Daniel has previously shared University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195 (206) 522-6031 http://www.psms.org tales of his journeys to far-flung places User name: Password: with us, he will speak this time on a more local subject: “Edible mushrooms of the OFFICERS: Marian Maxwell, President2010–2012 Pacific Northwest and Their Not-So-Ed- 2009–2011 Milton Tam, Vice President ible Look-Alikes.” Come see Daniel and Daniel Winkler John Goldman, Treasurer2010–2012 Denise Banaszewski, Secretary2009–2011 prepare to be entertained, fascinated, and educated! TRUSTEES: 2009–2011: Daniel grew up in Munich, Germany, and started hunting mush- Brenda Fong, Debra Lehrberger, rooms as soon as he could keep up with his family in the forests. Randy Richardson, Jennifer Slack, He has studied geography, botany, and ecology in order to work Kim Traverse on environmental issues in the Himalayas and Tibet, where he 2010–2012: has researched and consulted for 20 years. As part of his research Louise Asif, Jim Hughes, Daniel has focused on medicinal and edible mushrooms in Tibet. Pacita Roberts, Ed Sakai, Tony Tschanz Daniel moved to Seattle and joined PSMS in 1996, which took Patrice Benson (Immed. Past Pres.) his love for mushrooms to a whole new level. He is an expert on wild edible mushrooms on three continents and organizes exotic ALTERNATES: Ruth Buttler-Rhese, Sharon Chappell mushroom tours, venturing into new and old habitats and cultures SCI. ADVISOR: Dr. Joseph F. Ammirati to feed his curiosity and his family (see: www.MushRoaming. EDITOR: Agnes A. Sieger, 271 Harmony Lane, com). Along the way he captures photographic images and gath- Port Angeles, WA 98362 ers stories to share. He is a popular lecturer at mushroom forays [email protected] and gatherings. Annual dues $30; full-time students $20 Sharing the microphone will be Kelly Chadwick, who will read from an anthology of fungal-inspired poetry called Decomposition, which CALENDAR he co-edited with Renée Roehl. This text—apparently the first of its Feb. 8 Membership Meeting, 7:30 pm, CUH kind—explores a broad spectrum of Feb. 16 Board Meeting, 7:30 pm, CUH (changed) Kelly Chadwick and Renée human responses to the kingdom of Roehl fungi, from dry-analytic to campy, Feb. 22 Spore Prints Deadline and promises to be “humorous, authentic, and intelligent.” Kelly Mar. 12 Ballot reception deadline has studied mushrooms on and off for 20 years during which time they’ve frequented his dreams and drawn him into the woods. Mar. 19 Survivors’ Banquet and Annual Meeting, 7:30 pm, He is a fine-wine manager for a beverage distributor and lives in CUH Spokane with Renée. BOARD NEWS Marian Maxwell Would members with last names beginning with the letters A–K, please bring a plate of refreshments to enjoy after the meeting. We are pleased to announce that we are funding a grant request from our own Josh Birkebak for $1,945 which was requested to enable him to work on Clavariaceae in the Pacific Northwest. BACTERIA AND FUNGI KEEP SOME ANCIENT Progress is continuing on issues concerning the new website. AUSTRALIAN ROCK ART COLORS VIVID Carlos Cruz, chair of he new Vouchering Project, summarized Lin Edwards the committee’s goals and steps that need to be taken to begin PhysOrg.com, Jan. 6, 2011 the process of scientific vouchering. A deposit has been made to reserve The Mountaineers’ facility at Sandpoint for the annual fall New studies of 80 Bradshaw rock art works in the Kimberley mushroom show. It was decided to have a potluck this year for region of Western Australia have shown their colors have not the banquet; a nominal charge of $5 per person was decided upon faded because the artworks are coated with a biofilm of bacteria to encourage an early response to get a head count. We will be and fungi. printing some T-shirts to have for sale in the coming months. We The Bradshaw art works are named after Joseph Bradshaw, a will establish a business “face” on Facebook for announcements 19th century pastoralist who was the first white settler to discover only. We will not enable the comments from the public, since we them. They are known locally as Gwion Gwion. The paintings are have this option on the Yahoo group lists.