Welcome!

Welcome to the third Online-Only issue of the Sporadic Press. We are going paperless to simplify the Editors job, save money, and help the environment.

December Holiday Party

The next meeting will be a party.

Join members of the SDMS for our annual potluck party. Paul Maschka invites you to his house on Monday, December 1st at 6:00 p.m.

Dig out your favorite recipes with wild or cultivated mushrooms or other good things.

Address: 1111 Sunset Cliffs Blvd, San Diego

Directions: Take I-8 West until it ends and runs into Sunset Cliffs Blvd. Go south to 1111.

Soft drinks and coffee will be provided. If you want something stronger, please bring your own.

Festivities will include a "white elephant" gift exchange. You may go home with the Harley Barnhart memorial spoonholder.

Now is your chance to get rid of that awful gift that has been gathering dust in the closet ever since someone completely unfamiliar with your taste in household objects gave it to you years ago. Wrap it up and bring it to the party for the "Most Awful" gift exchange. Trading will be allowed, or possibly encouraged, just in case your white elephant turns out to be the apple of someone's eye. De gustibus non disputandum!

No RSVP is required, and nobody is organizing the food. It always seems to work out well enough, so bring whatever you like. Remember to label your dish as vegan, vegetarian, omnivorous, or any other category of possible interest. If you include wild mushrooms, please identify the species used.

SOMA Mushroom Camp

January 17-19, 2009 SOMA Camp is an annual gathering of mushroom enthusiasts sponsored by the Sonoma County Mycological Association. This three-day weekend is held in January, and is packed with activities, lectures, and workshops focused on learning about wild mushrooms.

Registration is now open and is online! Go to: http://www.somamushrooms.org/camp/camp.html and either download the registration form to mail in and pay by check, or register directly online using PayPal! Be sure to let us know if you have any problems with either of these methods.

SDMS Mushroom Fair

Mushroom Fair date is February 22, 2009. It was incorrectly announced as February 15 at the November meeting. www.sdbgf.org/shows.html

Cantharellus californicus

Our big, beautiful, oak-loving California chanterelle now has its very own latin name: Cantharellus californicus. It was published in the journal "Economic Botany", by David Arora and Dr. Susie Dunham. We knew it was special; now the rest of the world does, too!

Mushrooms, Russia and History

For the first time since its original publication by Pantheon Books in 1957, Robert Gordon and Valentina Pavlovna Wasson's "Mushrooms, Russia and History" is available for download, free of charge, thanks to the New Alexandria archive. A text once limited to rare book rooms, collectors, or those with the disposable capital sufficient to purchase a personal copy(often on the order of $2500 per volume), is finally available with the desire to learn as the only requirement for access. The link to the pdf files can be found here: http://www.newalexandria.org/archive/

Slime Mold Pictures

Check out these wonderful pictures of slime molds.

A Good Haul

A novel way to bring home the mushrooms.

Mushroom Observer

An Invitation to Work Together on Mushroom Observer.org Are you interested in helping to create a worldwide mushroom database? Would you like to participate in a mushroom related website that allows anyone to contribute their own mushroom photos, participate in conversation about those contributions, and search the site for photos and comments?

The community supporting the MushroomObserver.org website would like to invite all interested parties to get involved in creating a common on-line meeting ground for mushroom enthusiasts. It makes sense to have one common site to compare photos and get feedback from others. We would be happy, with your help, to shape MushroomObserver. org towards better achieving that goal. Much of the ground work is already done.

• Anyone can add their own images of mushrooms.
• Anyone can make a comment or suggest a new name for any mushroom observation.
• Anyone can contribute to a shared database of mushroom descriptions.
• Anyone can make species lists for a location, event or any other purpose.
• Anyone can generate a list of fungi found by clicking the check boxes.
• Anyone can compare all photos of the same species.
• Anyone can vote on any species name.
• Anyone can see a location map of where the collection was made.
• Anyone can get the full source code for the website and participate in its development.
• There are no financial hooks.

Conceptually the site is similar to Wikipedia, but with an emphasis on recording individual records of people finding and identifying mushrooms. At the moment (July 2008) there are over 350 registered users and more the 15,000 images from all over the world. Mushroom Observer is not intended to replace the websites for existing mushroom groups. These serve a very valuable purpose of providing a common place for people in a given area who know each other to organize local events and share their local experience. Mushroom Observer strives to complement such sites by providing a larger context for these groups to share and record their discoveries in a lasting way, and compare their findings with findings from other similar groups. It is a living mushroom field guide on the web which we are all building together.
We hope you can join us!
Darvin DeShazer & Nathan Wilson

Mushrooms in the News

Recent news items:
Myco-diesel
Matsutake Hunt - Don't miss the video!
Wild Irish Food
Fall Fungi in Atlanta
New book for mushroom harvesters
Yuba Fungus Foray Dec 12-13

More Festivals and Forays

What's Cooking?

Fungi as Food

Two sources for a "Recipe of the Month".
BAMS, and MAMS

Fungi of the Month

Now there are two "Fungus of the Month" sites:
Tom Volk's long-running series at : http://tomvolkfungi.net/.
And a new one at: http://www.bayareamushrooms.org/mushroommonth/index.html.

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SDMS Information