2022 Mount Pisgah Arboretum Mushroom Festival

Published November 2, 2022 · Updated November 14, 2022

Except for the absence of rain in September and most of October, we were almost back to our normal Mushroom Festival. Partnering with the Arboretum and Lane Community College to put on the annual Mount Pisgah Arboretum Mushroom Festival each year is always a privilege and a highlight of the year for CMS members. In addition to being the largest educational event of the year for CMS; it is also the largest fund raising event of the year for both the Arboretum and CMS. CMS had record sales at our sales booth of over $5000; we sold out of many items.

A great big thank you to all of the CMS members who went out on one of the five collecting forays, those who helped to set up the displays and fold t-shirts on Saturday, and those that helped with staffing the festival on Sunday. A special thanks to those that did all three!

And, as always, Susie Holmes and her LCC students are always there to help get every mushroom into place!

We were also glad to welcome back Steve Trudell and Noah Siegel who spent all day Saturday identifying mushrooms then spent all day Sunday at the Expert ID table. We all wish we had both your energy and knowledge! We also had Efrén Cázares to identify all of those coral mushrooms (genus Ramaria) you saw on display. Without Efren’s knowledge and examination of species with a microscope, the Ramaria section would be very sparse.

From CMS Display Coordinators Peg Boulay and Bruce Newhouse – To no one’s surprise, because of the long drought preceding the show, numbers were much lower than the past few years:

Total number of species on display – 307
In the show before: 286
New to the show: 21

Best of Show Mushrooms

Best of Show: Trametes ochracea (Ochre Bracket on log); Joe Spivack (center of picture)
1st – Xeromphalina campenella (Golden Trumpets), Ron & Sandy Patton (bottom right)
2nd – Hericium abietis (Goat’s Beard); Stephen McKeon (left side of picture)

A few pictures from the Festival

Many more good quality pictures at the Register Guard!

Mushroom Show Mycoblitz

Below are all of the pertinent stats for the 3rd annual Mushroom Show Mycoblitz. This annual event is one of the good things that came from the COVID-19 pandemic. Thank you to the CMS MLCO/Taxonomy team members Bruce Newhouse & Susie Holmes who organized and monitored the event.

Also thank you to the many CMS members and others who participated in making observations on iNaturalist, and also those that helped with the identification of the observations posted.

The weather definitely made a difference: 2020 Mycoblitz observations were 2296, and we had 2476 observations for the 2021 Mycoblitz.