Current Year Mushroom Festival

You must purchase tickets in advance to attend the MPA Mushroom Festival. Tickets are $15 and will go on sale on September 26th via the Mount Pisgah Arboretum’s website.

If you are visiting from out of town, keep in mind that there are several mushroom activities preceding and after the festival that you may find of interest. The weekend before is the Yachats Mushroom Festival on the coast. Leading up to the festival (Oct 21-24) is a Mushroom Cultivation Design Course with Fungi for the People in nearby Westfir, OR. And, the weekend after the festival is the NAMA Dunes Regional Foray in Florence, OR.

Mushroom Activities by CMS and LCC

The Mushroom Festival is located at and organized by the Mount Pisgah Arboretum (MPA). If you are a vendor and want to participate, or want more details about all of the festival activities and logistics, check out the Arboretum’s Vendor page. 

The Cascade Mycological Society (CMS), along with Lane Community College (LCC) students in the Biology of Mushrooms class taught by Susie Holmes, are responsible for putting “the mushrooms in the mushroom festival”. Together, we search from the Cascades to the Coast to collect every species of mushroom we can find. Then, we invite nationally recognized mycologists to help us with identifying the mushrooms we collect, along with our local CMS experts. Only the mushrooms that are identified to both genus and species (or group/complex), are put on display. In addition to the mushroom display, you won’t want to miss the following CMS and LCC-provided displays and activities:

• Bring mushrooms to be identified to our “Ask an Expert” table, located at the front of the White Oak Pavilion, where the main mushroom display is located.
• Be sure to visit our “Edible, Poisonous and Look-Alikes” tent to learn about some mushroom species to enjoy and some others to avoid! This display is staffed all day with experienced CMS members who can answer your questions.
• Check out the Fungi Science Tent, sponsored by our partner Lane Community College.
• Both kids and adults can learn about fungi at the “Fun Fungal Facts” tent.
• And don’t forget to visit the CMS booth, where t-shirts, cookbooks, and other mushroom accessories will be for sale.

Want to learn more about how the MPA Mushroom Festival got started in 1981? Check out the History of the MPA Mushroom Festival to learn how then LCC Professor Freeman Rowe and CMS members-to-be started this fabulous festival to benefit the Mount Pisgah Arboretum.

Guest Mushroom Experts

CMS is happy to welcome back guest expert Steve Trudell, who has identified mushrooms for the display every year since 2011. Steve will be joined by CMS founding member and local expert Ron Hamill, and Connor Dooley (AKA Corndog on iNaturalist). Lane Community College (LCC) Professor Susie Holmes and her students in the Biology of Mushrooms class will assist with placing all the identified mushrooms on display. While CMS members Bruce Newhouse & Peg Boulay will coordinate all of the CMS mushroom displays coming together.

Steve will be staffing the Expert Identification Table. Bring your mushrooms for identification or just have a chat with this PNW Myco Star. You can also purchase one of his books and have it signed!

Steve Trudell is a forest ecologist and itinerant educator who has been hunting, photographing, and learning about mushrooms for nearly 50 years. Currently an affiliate curator at the University of Washington Herbarium, he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Geology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a PhD in Forest Ecosystems Analysis from the University of Washington. Author or co-author of Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest, Tricholomas of North America,  and his latest book titled Mushrooms of Alaska. Steve has taught mycology, botany, and biology courses at the University of Washington, The Evergreen State College, and Bastyr University, as well as workshops at many North American Mycological Association and local forays and festivals. His particular interest is in the roles that fungi play in forest carbon and nutrient cycling, especially the mycorrhizal species.

Talks on the Terrace

Talks on the Terrace is for all of you fungal foodies! CMS Foodie Heather Sielicki will once again be our emcee for a full lineup of mycophiles and chefs who will teach you how to select, prepare, and preserve your favorite fungal finds.

10:45 to 11:15 – Valerie Nguyen of Fungi for the People

Noon to 12:45 – Acorn Community Cafe

1:15 to 2:00 – Seasoned at Claimed 52

2:30 to 3:15 – Jennifer Macone of The Mushroomery

Other Activities by Mount Pisgah Arboretum

The Mount Pisgah Arboretum makes sure everyone in the family has an entire day of fun! Not a mushroom fan? That’s okay. There are plenty of other activities that make this fall festival a favorite among the local community, from the Cascades to the Coast. Below are some of the fun activities that the Mount Pisgah Arboretum staff organizes. Feel free to check out more details at the MPA Mushroom Festival Website.

• Live Music from 10 AM to 5 PM 
• Hay Rides along the Arboretum’s scenic Meadow Road
• Guided Nature Walks by local naturalists
• The infamous and yummy hot apple cider booth!
• A Kids’ Booth with face painting and nature crafts
• Vendor booths: Crafts, fresh mushrooms, mushroom kits, food, and beverages
• The Fantastical Scarecrow Contest: Vote for Your Favorites!

The Mushroom Festival Mycoblitz

The Mushroom Festival Mycoblitz is just one more way to get involved in supporting both the mushroom festival and citizen science. The Mycoblitz will take place Oct. 16th through Oct. 25th and include mushrooms observed in Lane County and within about 20 miles outside of the county line: basically Newport to past Reedsport on the Coast, Albany to Roseburg in the interior, Mt. Jefferson (almost) south to Mt. Thielson in the Cascades, and east to Bend. If you upload with a large (vague) observation circle, the entire circle must be within the boundary for the observation to be counted in.

The iNat project dates are set to simulate the traditional collection time of about a week before the show, scheduled to occur on Sunday, October 26th. So the photo observations that get included in this iNat Mycoblitz should be those that would be out during the time they otherwise would have been collected for the show. The show usually includes around 400 to 500+ different wild mushrooms collected from Lane County and nearby. Please message us in iNat if you have any questions about the iNat Mycoblitz, and see the Mount Pisgah Arboretum website for more info.

 All INat observations of fungi that match the Mushroom Show Mycoblitz requirements (date, location, and taxa) will automatically be included in the Mycoblitz event. Please do not include lichenized fungi (lichens), but you may include slime molds (because many closely resemble fungi, and we include them in the festival display). Click the button below to view the Mycoblitz project on iNaturalist, then read on for instructions on how to contribute to the Mycoblitz.

If you have used iNaturalist (iNat) before, you are good to go. Simply upload mushroom observations that fall within the date and place limits of this project, and they will appear in the Lane County Mushroom Show Mycoblitz event project.

If you have not used iNat before, we recommend you take a little time to familiarize yourself with it. Simply visit iNaturalist’s Getting Started Page and read the instructions for uploading observations. Once you familiarize yourself with the process, try some practice uploading (you can always delete something that you uploaded as a test).

Mushroom Photo Tips

It is especially important to note that mushroom ID by others (associated with iNat, and the intent of this project) is difficult and sometimes impossible to do from photos. If you would like your photos to be considered for the project and have a higher chance of receiving an ID from someone, take and upload multiple photos of each specimen from different angles, especially showing the underside. For example, if you find an Amanita, photograph the top, photograph the underside (use your selfie lens and slip the camera under the mushroom cap and photograph to show gill attachment), photograph the stem base and volva by gently digging out around the base a little to expose them, and then hold the camera back several feet and photograph the whole mushroom in its surroundings. That is 4 photos in this example, which would be submitted together as ONE observation. Feel free to submit more photos (e.g., spores in your scope view if you have one?), but please do not submit any that essentially are duplicates. See the photo tips also on iNat. If you find something special or interesting, consider adding it to the Macrofungi of Lane County, Oregon (MLCO) project collection. MLCO is the ongoing CMS fungal diversity study. Visit the CMS MLCO web page for more information and to watch tutorials.