2024-2025 Year in Review

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CMS in the Media

This is not normally a section in the annual CMS Year in Review, but this year, this topic warrants front-page headlines! If you were at the Mount Pisgah Arboretum to help set up for the 2024 Mushroom Festival, you probably noticed Meera Subramanian interviewing several CMS members for the feature article in Orion magazine’s summer 2025 issue dedicated to the Future of Fungi. Meera also did interviews at the Yachats Mushroom Festival the weekend before. Of course, not everyone she interviewed is featured in the article, but you will know the two main characters: Christian Schwartz, who was our featured guest speaker for the festival, and our own Ron Hamill, pictured left with Meera. You can read more about the article in this CMS post, or read the entire article here.

The second interesting media news is that CMS is now on Wikipedia! Our page was created on April 20, 2025, by the user Hestia of the Unknown, who lives in New Zealand. The entry is not very detailed, but at least it is a start. Hopefully, more Wikipedia editors will contribute. I did a little research and found there are 4 other NAMA-affiliated clubs on Wikipedia.

Here they are with their initial publish dates:

NAMA also has an entry that was first published in 2007

CMS Meetings

All of our public meetings for the 2024/2025 season were in person at the Amazon Community Center and live-streamed to the  CMS YouTube channel. We had an excellent diversity of talks and speakers, including five talks given by CMS members. We are fortunate to have members who are considered experts, speaking to clubs and at mushroom shows and festivals. All of our talks include information for everyone, from novices to experts.

MPA Mushroom Festival Highlights

The 2024 Mount Pisgah Arboretum (MPA) Mushroom Festival was certainly action-packed! So much so, it is just too much to include in this post. From the planning, which always begins in June, to the last 15 minutes of the festival when a rainbow appeared in the sky and raindrops fell, there was an abundance of excitement.

Here is a taste of the highlights and special events:

  • CMS was happy to welcome Christian Schwarz for a special presentation on Friday night prior to the festival. Christian spoke about the broad bioregions of the United States from the perspective of mushrooms (which sometimes align with bioregions of plants and animals… but not always!).
  • The 2024 Mushroom Festival brought back culinary presentations to Talks on the Terrace for all of the fungal foodies! CMS foodie Heather Sielicki was on hand to emcee a full lineup of mushroom experts and chefs who talked about how to select, prepare, and preserve your favorite fungal finds, and they did not disappoint! We requested tastings, and they gave us meals!
  • We held the dedication of the Freeman Rowe Memorial Bench during the 2024 Mount Pisgah Arboretum Mushroom Festival. The bench honors Freeman Rowe, who left us on October 7, 2020, shortly before the 2020 MPA.
  • CMS President, Chris Melotti, did a post-festival interview with Michael Dune, host of Oregon on the Record.

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 who helped with staffing the festival on Sunday. A special thanks to those who did all three!  CMS welcomed back Expert Identifiers Steve Trudell, author of Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest, and Efrén Cázares, co-author of Ramaria of the PNW, to identify mushrooms gathered for the display. Additionally, several of our local club members assisted with identifying the more common mushrooms and those that can be identified without the aid of a microscope. A mushroom is not placed on the display until it is identified to species (or group/complex). And, as always, students from the Lane Community College Biology of Mushroom class were on hand Saturday to help set up the display.

Mushroom Display – The total number of species was 414, our second-highest year since we began keeping records in 2007. The number of new species to the show was 45.

Click here to view more pictures and the full details of the 2024 MPA Mushroom Festival

CMS Members’ Only Field Trips

The 2024/2054 left us still waiting for a spectacular mushrooming season. Unfortunately, that did not happen. However, regardless of the lack of early rains or the weather, we still find a diversity of mushrooms for the festival, teach new members how to identify and collect mushrooms safely, and offer all members the opportunity to collect with fellow mycophiles. Below is the list of the 12 CMS Member field trips for the season.

  • September 14, 2024 – Cascades/Hwy 58 with Matthew Johnson
  • September 21, 2024 – Cascades/Hwy 58 with Chris Melotti
  • October 20, 2024 – Festival collecting at the Coast with Cheshire Mayrsohn
  • October 22, 2024 – Festival collecting in the Cascades/Hwy 126 with Cheshire Mayrsohn
  • October 23, 2024 – Festival collecting in the Cascades/Hwy 58 with Lee Yamada
  • October 25, 2024 – Festival collecting Coast Range with Matt Mathiason
  • November 9, 2024 – Cottage Grove/Dorena area with Matthew Johnson
  • December 1, 2024 – Coast Range with Matt Mathiason
  • January 20, 2024 – Cottage Grove/Dorena area with Chris Melotti
  • April 12, 2024 – Spring mushrooms/Hwy 58 with Dylan Eckert
  • May 18, 2024 – Cascades/Hwy 58 with Matt Mathiason
  • June 7, 2024 – Cascade Lakes Highway with Matthew Johnson

Fungi Education in the Community

CMS as an organization and individual CMS members participate in community events that promote and educate about fungi throughout the year. Below are the community events for 2024-2025.

  • Trent Blizzard continues to serve as President of the North American Mycological Association (NAMA). Cheshire Mayrsohn has served along with Trent on the NAMA Executive Committee. Kristen Blizzard serves as the Chairman of the NAMA website committee and also serves on the NAMA Marketing and Foray committees. Sandy Patton serves on the NAMA Club Relations Committee.
  • Susie Holmes taught a “Beginning Fungal Microscopy” workshop at the NAMA Annual Foray, held in Randall, WA. She was assisted by CMS member Scott Clarke, a Senior Staff Scientist at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Scott brought along a Thermo Branded EVOS M7000 Imaging System, which he borrowed from work. Scott’s digital images were amazing! CMS member Jon Sommer taught a two-day Beginner’s workshop at the foray. Trent and Kristen were also involved in helping to ensure everything ran smoothly.
  • In addition to the MPA Mushroom Festival, several CMS members work alongside members of the Lincoln County Mycological Society (LCMS) and the North American Truffle Society (NATS) at the annual Yachats Mushroom Festival. These include: Susie Holmes, Matthew Johnson, Chris Melotti, Joe Spivack, Jon Summers, Molly Widmer, and Lee Yamada.
  • At the beginning of October, Ron and Sandy Patton led a group of 9th graders on an educational field trip to Alsea Falls. After gathering around a picnic table for a mushroom ecology review and show-and-tell of common species, the group walked the trails to discover their own mushroom treasures and enjoy the day in nature.
  • At the end of the 2024 MPA Mushroom Festival, CMS members Joe Spivack and Lee Yamada once again gathered up several boxes of mushrooms for the Village School of Eugene. They did an afternoon talk about the basic biology of mushrooms and their role in the ecosystem. Several days later, they spent an adventurous and educational day in the woods, engaging in hands-on mushroom foraging.
  • Joe Spivack always takes time in the fall, typically in November, to lead the Friends of Hendricks Park annual Mushroom walk.
  • In December, Chris Melotti, Molly Widmer, and Ann Goddard assisted at the 50th Anniversary of the LCMS Fall Mushroom Show at the Gleneden Beach Community Center.
  • CMS Vice President Matthew Johnson has maintained a CMS presence in the Community Village section of the Oregon Country Fair for many years. We don’t have a lot of space, but Matthew educates all of the myco curious that wander his way.
  • Another CMS member who is very active in the mycological community is Jon Sommer. In addition to the Cascade Mycological Society, Jon is a member of four other mushroom societies. Jon’s passion includes teaching beginner’s (and more advanced) Mushroom ID classes. Jon regularly gives talks and leads Forays for the annual NAMA foray, SOMA Camp (Sonoma County), Wild Rivers Mushroom Festival, Yachats Mushroom Festival, and for other mushroom clubs across the country.
  • Last, but certainly not least. CMS partners with the City of Eugene Recreation Services to offer seasonal educational outings and classes to the community through the Amazon Community Center, where we hold our monthly meetings. This year’s events were an “Introduction to Wild Mushroom Identification” class taught by Ron and Sandy Patton. A Family Mushroom Walk through Hendricks Park led by Chris Melotti and Molly Widmer. And, a “Cooking with Mushrooms” demonstration class taught by Lee Yamada.

Grants and Scholarships Awarded

The CMS Board voted to grant the Freeman Rowe Educational Scholarship to Charles Bruder at the December 2024 Board Meeting. Merry Christmas, Charlie! Charlie is a young, enthusiastic mycologist who lives in Corvallis, attends OSU, and has already spoken to CMS twice. I emphasize ‘young,’ as Charlie is our first undergraduate scholarship recipient since we added this option to our program in 2020. Charlie is currently a Junior at OSU working on a degree in microbiology. Hopefully, by the time he delivers his next presentation to CMS to inform us of the results of his research, we will be able to take him out for a celebratory adult beverage afterwards. And, we hope he continues on his educational path and applies for CMS scholarships during his master’s and graduate programs. You will find more information about Charlie’s Scholarship application, including his research proposal abstract, here.

We also had the opportunity to attend the OSU Herbarium Cabinet that CMS and LCMS purchased in 2023. On June 17, 2025, members of both LCMS and CMS were invited by Dr. Jessie Uehling, the curator of the OSC Fungal Herbarium, to a dedication of the cabinet, which had finally arrived and was installed in the herbarium. The afternoon started with refreshments and a talk by Dr. Uehling. Jessie first provided an overview of the OSC Fungal Herbarium and an overview of her goals for the future of the fungal herbarium, which included an ask/challenge for CMS, LCMS, and all of the Oregon Mycological clubs to assist in “filling the gaps” in taxa and/or regions within Oregon for which the OSC Fungal Herbarium has little or no data. More about the OSU Herbarium Dedication here.

Macrofungi of Lane County, OR (MLCO)

There has been a lot of progress on the Lane County Macrofungi project this year.  Dan Morton has single-handedly produced a great deal of spectacular photography and microscopy, seemingly adding to the list of species every time he ventures out.  A major paper about the Macrofungi of the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest, which is in Lane County, will be out later this year.  This work was led by Bitty Roy and her lab group, which included Carolyn Delevich, Heather Dawson, and Haley Burrill, as well as many other co-authors, including Susie Holmes and Noah Siegel, along with OSU scientists Posy Busby and Joe Gagne.  More than a thousand species of macrofungi are now known from the Andrews forest. Numerous CMS members helped with collecting in the Andrews, including Ralph Begley, Marcia Peters, Sandy Patton, Cheshire Mayrsohn, Ann Goddard, Bruce Newhouse, and Dan Morton.  

The statistics for all MLCO iNaturalist projects are listed below. You will see there was a 25 percent increase in observations in our primary project and over a 50% increase in the number of vouchered specimens. We will continue our progress by hosting a few work parties in the fall to create herbarium packets and affix labels for Lane County collections that have been sequenced. Help is appreciated!

The MLCO project on iNaturalist is constantly growing/gathering inputs through everyday people uploading their fungal finds to iNaturalist. Every mushroom uploaded to iNaturalist that is within the MLCO geographical boundaries and meets all of the MLCO requirements is automatically added to the project. Below are the current statistics for the 3 projects maintained by MLCO on iNaturalist. The increase in numbers cited in parentheses represents the change since the last year’s CMS Year in Review was published on September 7, 2024. Note that the number of species stats is a total and not necessarily validated.

Macrofungi of Lane County Oregon (Main project)

Project Description: This project was initiated to inventory and document the macrofungi of Lane County, Oregon, and its surrounding areas. It is sanctioned as a part of the Cascade Mycological Society (CMS).

  • Total observations: 91,500 (increase of 17,404)
  • Total species: 2371 ( increase of 255)
  • #people/contributors: 6,752 (increase of 1,170)

Woodchip Fungi of Lane County Oregon – (sub-project)

Project Description: The Woodchip Fungi of Lane County project was created in December 2019. This project documents the fungi present in wood chip habitats. Primarily geared towards urban landscapes in the Eugene-Springfield area, it includes fungi present in any woodchip (i.e., wood chip or mulch-covered landscape areas) habitat within Lane County.

  • Total observations: 199 (increase of 3)
  • Total species: 68 (increase of 3)
  • #people/contributors: 80 (increase of 2)

Vouchered Macrofungi of Lane County Oregon (sub-project)

Project Description: This project is for designated users who voucher fungal specimens for fungaria (fungal herbaria) in addition to making photo observations on iNat. If you would like to do this, please contact Bitty Roy on iNaturalist – @bit. Please do not join the project without doing that first. A subset of these vouchered specimens is selected for DNA testing.

  • Total vouchered: 1200 (increase of 763)
  • Total species: 538 (increase of 124)
  • #people/contributors: 56 (increase of 2)

Each year, MLCO organizes a Mycoblitz in the week leading up to the MPA Mushroom Festival. This corresponds to the time that CMS members are out collecting mushrooms for the mushroom display. Observers may be CMS members or not, as everyone is welcome to participate. The most observed species that week was the very popular Amanita muscaria or Fly Agaric. The most active observers for the Mycoblitz were Andrea Wuenschel, Chris Kleine, and Anne Goddard. Andrea Wuenschel had the most observations with 115; Chris was not far behind with 96. Ann followed with 76 observations. Chris had the most number of unique species observed, with 68. While Andrea and Ann both observed 36 unique species.

Andrea is a biologist, birder, and all-around naturalist who is a former CMS member. Chris is a CMS member and is also on the Board of Directors for the Utah Mycological Society. Ann is a long-time member of CMS who volunteers her time at the MPA and Yachats festivals and designed the CMS t-shirt in 2018.

Just as important as the observers are the identifiers. Once again, August Jackson contributed the most identifications with 477. Hillary Rose Dawson contributed 293 identifications. After making observations, Chris Kleine jumped in to help with identifications, racking up 157.

To keep abreast of the MLCO project, check out the MLCO News & Updates page.

CMS Special Events/Activities

Each year, we seem to have some type of new or special event or activity in addition to our monthly meetings and member field trips. Sometimes they become annual events or activities, while others do not. 

Our end-of-year Annual Meeting and Mushroom Grillout is always among our most popular events. So, I will begin with that.

Annual Meeting and Mushroom Grillout

As a registered 501 (c) (3) nonprofit, we are required to have both an Annual Meeting and an Annual Vote of our Board of Directors. We now hold our voting online in advance of the Annual Meeting. As an enticement, members must vote to attend the Annual Meeting, which features approximately 10 minutes of business and over 2 hours of fun and camaraderie. Additionally, there is a wide variety of delicious food.

CMS purchases a large quantity of morels suitable for stuffing, as well as two or three other types of mushrooms for tasting. Some members assist with stuffing morels and food preparation, but the majority of the work is done by the CMS Board as a thank you to members who participate in voting.

Myco Mingle!

We continued the Myco Mingles we began in October of 2023. They have provided an excellent opportunity for CMS members to socialize, share stories of their mushroom outings, and connect with other members. A Myco Mingle was actually our first event of the year, prior to any meetings or outings.

In addition to our first Myco Mingle on Sept 7, 2024. We hosted a Myco Mingle and Christmush sale in December, as well as Myco Mingles in February and April. We sprinkled in a few celebrations along the way. In December, we celebrated CMS Board Member Matt Mathiason’s birthday, which was fitting since we scheduled the Myco Mingle on his birthday. And, we welcome Tom Lacascio as the latest CMS Honorary Life Member. Tom has been hosting the post-Mushroom Festival gathering for CMS volunteers at his home for over ten years.

Game of Shrooms!

For the fourth year in a row, CMS member Sandy Patton participated on behalf of CMS in Game of Shrooms, a worldwide Art-N-Seek event created by Attaboy. Five mushroom art objects were placed at each of two local parks in the River Road, Santa Clara area of Eugene.

These parks were selected for two reasons. First, because we had not placed any items in the River Road/Santa Clara areas in any previous year. And, most importantly, Sandy lives in the area.

Hints of the mushroom art placement locations were posted on the morning of June 14th on the CMS Instagram feed. Some folks were watching Instagram and went out to see if they could find a prize, while others were just lucky park walkers who went home with a fun surprise featuring a mushroom!

We especially enjoyed seeing the pictures posted to Instagram by those who found the mushroom art.

CMS Board of Directors

Above are the 2024/2025 Board of Directors, which appears to be a repeat of the 2023/2024 Board. If it’s not broke, why fix it! Especially when volunteers are scarce. CMS members may log in and find all of the Board Meeting minutes and information on how to get more involved on the CMS Board Activities page.

  • Chris Melotti – President and Speaker Coordinator
  • Matthew Johnson – Vice President and Field Trip Coordinator 
  • Erin Brown – Recording Secretary and co-coordinator of the CMS booth at the MPA Mushroom Festival
  • Eugena Mathiason: Treasurer and co-coordinator of the CMS booth at the MPA Mushroom Festival
  • Dan Berlant – Board member at large and MPA Festival Volunteer Coordinator
  • Lee Yamada – Board member at large and Volunteer Extraordinare
  • Matt Mathiason – Board member at large and frequent Field Trip leader
  • Bob Blanchard – Board member at large and provider of yummy treats at Board meetings

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