CMS Meeting Tuesday, November 24: California Mushrooms with Dennis E. Desjardin
Dennis E. Desjardin, Professor of Mycology at San Francisco State University and Director of the Harry D. Thiers Herbarium will speak to us about his new book, “California Mushrooms”. California is one of the most ecologically rich and diverse regions of North America, and home to thousands of species of mushrooms. In California Mushrooms, mycologists Dennis Desjardin, Michael Wood, and Fred Stevens cover over 1100 of them, with detailed profiles of 650 species. Each profile includes information on macro- and micromorphology, habitat, edibility, and comparisons with closely related species and potential look-alikes. Although the focus of the book is on mushrooms of California, over 90% of the species treated occur elsewhere, making the book useful throughout western North America.
Meet at 7:00 pm in the Main Hall at the Amazon Community Center at 2700 Hilyard St. There will be a mushroom show and tell identification session prior to the speaker. Bring what’s in your basket, edible or not, and learn from the experienced members of our community.
The talk is free and open to the public. Please note this date is different from our usual Wednesday meeting time in order to accommodate the speaker’s schedule.
About the Speaker
Dennis Desjardin is Professor of Biology at San Francisco State University. He received a Master’s Degree from San Francisco State University studying with Dr. Harry D. Thiers, and a PhD from the University of Tennessee under the guidance of Dr. Ronald H. Petersen. He also had the privilege of being trained by Drs. Alexander H. Smith, Rolf Singer, Meinhard Moser and Egon Horak. He has published over 130 refereed scientific papers on the taxonomy and evolution of mushroom-forming fungi in which he described 250 new species and 7 new genera. He is co-author of the field guides Mushrooms of Hawaii (Ten Speed Press, 2002) and the new California Mushrooms (Timber Press, 2015). He has active research projects in the Hawaiian Islands, Micronesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil, and the African islands of São Tome and Principe, funded by grants from the National Science Foundation. A recent interest is in the origin and evolution of bioluminescent fungi. Born and raised in Crescent City, CA, he has been collecting and studying California mushrooms for over 60 years.
