Author Archives: Ethan Crenson

NYMS Lectures for 2023

Here is the schedule for the 2023 Lecture Series. There are a handful of additional lectures in the works that are not listed at the moment. So be sure to check back so you don’t miss anything. Lectures are, for the most part, presented via Zoom and are either held on Thursday evenings or Sunday afternoons. If you are a member, you will receive an email that contains further details about each lecture and a link to join via zoom (where applicable).

Thursday February 16th
Rosanne Healy
The Pezizales & Their Varied Lifestyles

 
Thursday March 2nd
Donald Pfister
The Uses of Herbaria/Fungaria

 
Thursday March 30th
Shannon Adams
Cortinarius

 
Thursday April 13th
James Dalling
Seed – Fungal Relationships

 
Christian Volbracht
Sunday April 30th
Christian Volbracht
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.

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.

 
Björn Wergen
Sunday, May 21st
Björn Wergen
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.

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).

 
Thursday June 15th
Keith Seifert
Three Microfungi that Changed the World

 

Remembering Tom Volk

Tom Volk appeared as a performer in the September 2012 celebration 100/50/Cage/NYMS Anniversary, which celebrated the mycological and artistic life of John Cage, founder of the New York Mycological Society. The experimental performance included audio, video, and live readings from Cage’s score. Paul Sadowski provided this excerpt from the 2012 performance at Cooper Union.

Gary Lincoff

Gary Lincoff Book auction Sunday, December 4th 1PM

The Gary Lincoff Book Auction will be held on Sunday, December 4th at 1PM in TriBeCa, lower Manhattan, New York. Tickets are required to attend the auction and are now open to all mycophiles. Admission is $5. Proxy bidding for those who cannot attend either the live and silent auctions is available to everyone (see below).

Get your tickets here 

Tickets will not be sold at the door.

The sale will include a live auction of choice books from Gary Lincoff’s library— many of them used and annotated by Gary, some signed and inscribed by the author(s).

View the LIVE AUCTION offerings here

There will also be a silent auction of useful, collectible and valuable books, some signed by the authors, many personalized by Gary.

View the SILENT AUCTION offerings here

There will also be hundreds of VERY reasonably priced books which you can purchase at the sale in a “Buy it now” capacity. A rough list of these “Buy it now” books is here:

View the Buy It Now books here

All books have Gary’s bookplate on the inside front cover.

The live auction will begin around 2:00PM

Proxy Bids for those who cannot attend…

If you are unable to attend the sale, you are invited to submit bids in advance by email. Simply peruse both the LIVE and SILENT auction lists. Make a bid list of the items you wish to bid on, and email it to editor@newyorkmyc.org. A bid list should include the lot number, book author and title, PLUS your maximum bid for the item. If your bid is the highest, what you bid is what you pay. Winnings will be mailed via media mail. Payment for postage is the responsibility of the bidder. Submit you proxy bid lists before 9PM (Eastern) Thurs., December 1st.

Payment in person by cash, check, Venmo, Zelle and PayPal (credit card via PayPal is possible even if you don’t have an account). Payment for bids by proxy by check, PayPal, Zelle and Venmo. You will receive an invoice for your winnings after the auction.

The proceeds from the auction will fund the archiving of Gary’s voluminous papers and other materials.

Refreshments and light fare will be provided.

About Gary Lincoff
Gary not only wrote the definitive guide to North American mushrooms but spread the joy of mushrooms far and wide. He was for many decades the club’s guiding spirit and beloved informal leader. Find out more about Gary here.

NEMF

NEMFs Virtual Mushroom Conference this Friday and Saturday

The Northeast Mycological Federation is staging an online conference with two days of lectures. Attendees will have access to video recordings of presentations for 30 days after the conference ends. The keynote speaker will be Giuliana Furci. Presentations from Lynn Boddy, Gabriela D’Elia, Joao Araujo, Tradd Cotter, Eugenia Bone, David Hibbett, Tom Horton, Roz Lowen, Renée Lebeuf, Noah Siegal, Rick Van de Poll, Rod Tulloss, Bill Bakaitis, Gary Gilbert and John Michelotti. Info and Registration at nemf.org/nemf-2021. The event takes place December 3rd and 4th.

Member walks have resumed for the 2021 season

Our walks have always been the heart and soul of the club’s activities. We have all missed them during the pandemic. You will be pleased to know that Member walks have resumed. Please be fully vaccinated, for your own safety and that of your fellow club members. The schedule has been posted on the Events page. Be aware that the schedule is subject to change and the details about meeting places and times are emailed to members several days ahead of the walk.

An Evening with Long Litt Woon

Long Litt Woon
Long Litt Woon, photo by Johs Bøh
The New York Mycological Society is pleased to present an evening with Long Litt Woon. Long will discuss and read from her recently published memoir, The Way Through the Woods on Mushrooms and Mourning.

When:
Monday, August 12th 6:00 – 8:00

Where:
Central Park Arsenal 830 5th Ave. (at 64th St.) New York, NY 10065

Copies of the books will be available for purchase and signing

Long Litt Woon (born 1958 in Malaysia) is an Anthropologist and certified Mushroom Expert in Norway. She went to Norway in her youth as an exchange student. There she met and later married a Norwegian, Eiolf Olsen, and made Norway her home. She currently lives in Oslo, Norway. The author’s surname is Long in accordance to Chinese naming tradition.

To listen to an interview with Long Litt Woon, click here.

To read an excerpt from The Way Through the Woods, click here.

Spring 2019

Greg Thorn and Cyphelloid Fungi by Leah Krauss
Indian Style Curried Lactarius in Coconut Milk by Dennis Aita
Thai Curry Lactarius in Coconut Milk by Juniper Perlis
Stepping Up Your Mushroom Game: 10 Surprising Ways iNaturalist Can Help by Sigrid Jakob
Who’s in a Name? by John Dawson
Appalachian Fungi: A Field Guide by Walter E. Sturgeon review by Tom Bigelow
Mycommentary by Ethan Crenson
Notes from the 2019 Business Meeting

EMIL LANG LECTURE SERIES FOR 2019

The NYMS Emil Lang Lectures for 2019 will be held on Monday nights, from 6:00-8:00, at the Central Park Arsenal. The entrance is just off 5th Ave. at 64th St.

The Arsenal, Central Park
830 5th Ave., Rm 318 (@ 64th St.)
New York, NY 10065

The lectures are free and open to the public.

Else-with-amanitas-by-Nhu-Nguyen

February 25th
Else Vellinga
“Fungal Conservation”

Else Vellinga is a mycologist who is interested in naming and classifying mushroom species in California and beyond, especially Parasol mushrooms. She has described 22 species as new for California, and most recently worked at the herbaria at University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco State University for the Macrofungi and Microfungi Collections Digitization projects. She got her training at the National Herbarium in the Netherlands, and her PhD at the University of Leiden, also in the Netherlands. The main motivation for her taxonomic work is that it lays the basis for efforts to include mushroom species in nature management and conservation plans. She has proposed a number of Californian and Hawaiian species for the IUCN global database of endangered species. She tries to keep current with the mushroom literature. And lastly, Else is an avid knitter and likes to use mushroom dyed yarn for her creations. She lives with her two cats in Berkeley, California.

Greg Thorn

March 25th
Greg Thorn
“Explorations of Cyphelloid Fungi (and other Wee Mushrooms) in the Molecular Age”

Greg Thorn grew up in London, Ontario and became interested in natural history through the family garden, long summer vacations, and the local Field Naturalists group. Six summers as a naturalist in Algonquin Park built on this and introduced him to the world of mushrooms and other fungi. Mushroom forays of the Mycological Society of Toronto and NAMA were an important part of his training, where he met and learned from the likes of Gary Lincoff, Ron Petersen, Alex Smith, and many more. Writing the checklist of Algonquin Park macrofungi led Thorn to consult experts from Richard Korf to Jim Ginns and Scott Redhead, all of whom encouraged him to further studies of fungi. His graduate studies were at the University of Guelph (with George Barron) and the University of Toronto (with David Malloch), followed by positions in Japan, Michigan, Indiana, Wyoming, and finally back to London as a faculty member in the Department of Biology, University of Western Ontario. Thorn’s research is focused on the impact of disturbance on the diversity of mushroom fungi, and systematics of mushroom fungi generally.

Rod Tulloss

April 29th
Rod Tulloss
“Amanita with a Hand Lens and the Naked Eye: Communicating About Unfamiliar Finds Using the Seven Sections Recognized by Dr. Cornelis Bas”

Rod Tulloss has specialized in Amanitaceae for 42 years, having been mentored by the late Dr. Cornelis Bas (Leiden). His research is available through an expanding, open-access, on-line monograph, “Studies in the Amanitaceae” founded by him and co-edited with Dr. Zhu L. Yang (Kunming). The site treats over 1,050 taxa and includes a peer-reviewed e-journal (“Amanitaceae”) restricted to research associated with the herbarium and/or its staff. He is currently working on Amanita sect. Vaginatae for North America; the Boston Harbor Islands fungal inventory; providing support for individuals and clubs working on Amanita sequences via North American Mycoflora grants; providing interactions and teaching moments on mushroomobserver.org and on the Amanita of North America facebook group, etc. He maintains an extensive private herbarium of world Amanitaceae.

Visit his website: http://www.amanitaceae.org/

May 20th
Nova Patch
“Urban Lichens of New York City”

Nova Patch is an amateur lichenologist focusing on the urban lichens of NYC and curator of the open data project Lichens of New York City on iNaturalist. They are a regular speaker on diverse topics ranging from lichenology to emoji engineering, hold a botany certificate from the New York Botanical Garden, and are a Brooklyn-residing member of the New York Mycological Society. Nova will lead a city lichen walk the weekend following their talk.

Winter 2019

Microbia: A Journey into the Unseen World Around You by Eugenia Bone reviewed by Mical Moser
How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan reviewed by Leah Krauss
Green-Wood Cemetery: A Place for the Dead That Teems with Life by Sigrid Jakob
The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins reviewed by William May
The Mushroom Fan Club by Elise Gravel reviewed by Mac Crenson
Mushrooms: A Natural and Cultural History by Nicholas P. Money reviewed by Matt Gardner
Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation by Tradd Cotter reviewed by Craig Trester

Summer-Fall 2018

This newsletter is dedicated to our beloved friend and mentor, Gary Lincoff.

Contributors: Dennis Aita, Alissa Allen, Raymond Archambault & Kit Hang Leung, Alice Barner, Tom Bigelow, Eugenia Bone, Kathy and Joe Brandt, Cornelia Cho, Jason Cortland, Ralph Cox, Ethan Crenson, Jean-Pierre Delwasse, Bill Eggers, Ginette Francis, Matt Gardner, Tim Graham, Jeff Hodges, Susan Hopkins, Hiromi Karagiannis, Richard Kauffman, Reema Keswani, Sharon Kitagawa and Ira Hainick, Deborah Klein, Pam Kray, Jim Kronick, Carin Kuoni, Sam Landes, Maryna Lansky, David Lewis, Roz Lowen, Claude Martz, Mark Michleski & Kumiko Itagaki, Lawrence Millman, Mical Moser, Danny Newman, Anna Oakes, Elias Oakes, John Oakes, Nathaniel Oakes, Louise Oppedahl, John Plischke III, Michael Rapp, Don Recklies, Bruch Reed, Maria Reidelbach, Sarah-David Rosenbaum, Pam Sabroso, Paul Sadowski, Talia Schenkel, Elinoar Shavit, Noah Siegel, Dianna Smith, Dorothy Smullen, Walt Sturgeon, Kay Spurlock, Vivien Tartter, Thomas J. Volk, Nancy Ward, Sue Watson, Victor Weiss, Patricia Welles, Thaddeus Wolfe, Jacquelyn S Wong, Michael Wood, Gene Yetter, Bill Yule, Maria Zeremski