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
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.
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