Alberta Mycological Society

Drayton Valley Region - Foraging for Morels
2019-05-26 10:00 - 12:30 (America/Edmonton)
Please join us for a farm foray as we hunt for some morels. Please ensure you assemble prior to 10am as the foray will leave at 1015am sharp.
Location: Woodlot Farm/Reserve
Directions: Approximately 104 km from Edmonton travelling south on QE2, then west on 39, the south. At Alsike turn south on H20 travel to Breton; at Breton turn west on H616 and travel 8.5km, then turn north on RR50. Travel 3.2 km north, then turn west and travel 1/4 km or so. Farm is on your right. Sign says: Woodlot Stewartship Award. New Moose Hill Hall is nearby.
Please visit Google Maps.
Please read and familiarize yourself with the AMS Foray guidelines.
Happy Foraging!

Morel Foray at Ministik Lake
2019-05-19 10:00 - 13:30
With the rain forecast this week things could be looking up for some delicious fungi in great morel terrain.
Address:
Ministik School
21246 AB-14
Sherwood Park, AB T8G 1G1
Please meet at the Ministik school by 10 AM and head out on the foray by 10:20 AM
The school is on the north side of the highway. Please be there on time as we will be traveling from the school to the foray location – latecomers will not be able to find their own way.
We recommend that you should please bring a lunch and beverage.
Please read and familiarize yourself with the AMS Foray guidelines.
Happy Foraging!

Water Valley Morel Foray
2019-05-18 10:00 - 12:30
Please join us as we kick off spring with a morel foray! T-shirts and books will be for sale as well. You are free to bring your own lunch. The foray may be extended to another location if appropriate.
Address:
Water Valley Salloon
5210 Main St., Highway 579
Water Valley, AB T0M 2E0
Not sure what to bring? Visit our foraging blog post and find out all you need to know!

AMS Speaker Series: Joelle Chille Cale
2019-05-16 18:30 - 19:30 | Edmonton Public Library – Idylwylde (Bonnie Doon), 8310 88 Ave NW, Edmonton, Alberta, T6C 1L1, Canada
Please join AMS Director Joelle Chille Cale as she presents:
Mushroom Identification 101: An Overview for New and Experienced Hunters
This is a free public event, no registration is required but space is capped at 40 people. Please arrive early to snag your spot!

Foray Etiquette and Edible Mushrooms
2019-04-30 19:00 - 20:30 | Crowfoot Library, 8665 Nose Hill Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, T3G 5T3, Canada
The Foray Etiquette portion of this event will feature an overview of guidelines and rules for AMS members when foraying for mushrooms.
This will be followed by the Edible Mushrooms portions of the event; a presentation for beginners on some of the more common edible mushrooms in Alberta.
This is a public event and space is capped at 35 – first come, first seated!

Common and Unique Mushrooms of the Hinton Area
2019-04-25 18:30 - 20:00 | Hinton Municipal Library, 803 Switzer Dr., Hinton, Alberta, T7V 1V1, Canada
“Mushroom Man” Martin Osis will give a presentation on mushrooms local to the Hinton area. This is a free, public event and is first come first seated!

AMS Speaker Series: Dr. Toby Spribille
2019-04-18 18:30 - 19:30 | Edmonton Public Library – Idylwylde (Bonnie Doon), 8310 88 Ave NW, Edmonton, Alberta, T6C 1L1, Canada
Dr. Toby Spribille will discuss his groundbreaking work with lichens in a presentation titled “Definitely not IKEA: the search for the missing lichen symbiosis assembly instructions.”
This is a public event; first come, first seated with a capacity of 40!

President's Dinner
2019-03-23 18:00 - 21:00 | University of Alberta Faculty Club, 1435 Saskatchewan Dr NW, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2G9, Canada
Enjoy a buffet dinner prepared by the University of Alberta Faculty Club in the Saskatchewan Room and hear a talk by Dr. Richard Summerbell on “A Fungus that Thrives on Whiskey, Rum and Cognac in the Air”.
Buffet includes the following:

Wild Mushroom Chicken (GF)
Porcini Mushroom Pasta (Vegetarian)
The Cream of Mushroom Soup (Vegetarian)
Various sides, including rice, potatoes & salads
Assorted desserts

Entirely GF Menu includes:

Garden Salad with Balsamic Dressing on The Side
Gluten Free Tuscan Penne with Herbed Tomato Sauce & Wild Mushrooms
Fresh Fruit Plate for dessert

Parking
Members are respectfully reminded that their parking decal is only valid in V-lot between 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. and after 4:30 p.m. Overflow parking is available in the Windsor Car Park, members and guests must purchase parking tickets. For more information regarding rates please visit: https://www.albertamushrooms.ca//asinfo.ualberta.ca/en/ParkingServices/Visitor-Parking.aspx
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With the goal of keeping parking spaces free for our lunchtime members and guests, any vehicles parked in the V-Lot outside of these hours without a valid dispenser ticket will be ticketed by Parking Services.

Whiskey, Rum, and Cognac-loving Fungi In the early 2000’s, James Scott was called in by the Hiram Walker Distillery to investigate what the apparent fungal problem was that was causing all the houses and other structures in a 500m to 1 km radius around the whiskey storage warehouses to turn black. At first, he thought the dark fungus involved might be an unknown organism, but then he discovered it had been known from Cognac, France, in the 1880s, and then essentially forgotten. Later investigations, sometimes propelled by semi-secretive mass homeowner lawsuits in the USA and the UK, showed that the ‘whiskey fungus’ was to be found worldwide – but only where some artificial process was releasing tons of ethanol into the air. It had, and has, no known natural habitat – which is impossible, but so it stands at the moment. A new genus, Baudoinia, was described, named after the early researcher who described it in Cognac. Dr. Summerbell was sent to Cognac to collect a new specimen to represent the ‘type’ of the name. Some snaffling of blackened, dead bush twigs around a cognac warehouse hit paydirt. More recent investigations have found him sampling the stone on the Kentucky state capitol and scraping black fungus off over 100 baking-hot corrugated tin roofs near the Captain Morgan rum warehouse in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, taking a two-day break for Hurricane Irma to pass through. Somehow alcohol never fails to be linked to drama, even when fungi are involved.
Please purchase tickets by March 19, 2019

2019 Annual General Meeting - Lunch
2019-03-23 11:30 - 12:30 | University of Alberta Faculty Club, 1435 Saskatchewan Dr NW, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2G9, Canada
Enjoy a buffet soup and salad selection prepared by the University of Alberta Faculty Club!
Selection includes:

Fresh Buns
Cream of Mushroom Soup (GF, Vegetarian)
Chicken Rice Soup (Gluten Free, Dairy Free)
Coleslaw (Contains gluten)
Mixed Greens Salad (Gluten Free, Dairy Free)
Caesar Salad

Location: Saskatchewan Room
Parking

Members are respectfully reminded that their parking decal is only valid in V-lot between 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. and after 4:30 p.m. Overflow parking is available in the Windsor Car Park, members and guests must purchase parking tickets. For more information regarding rates please visit: https://www.albertamushrooms.ca//asinfo.ualberta.ca/en/ParkingServices/Visitor-Parking.aspx
​
With the goal of keeping parking spaces free for our lunchtime members and guests, any vehicles parked in the V-Lot outside of these hours without a valid dispenser ticket will be ticketed by Parking Services.

We welcome Dr. Richard Summerbell, Canadian mycologist from the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health as he presents on the following:
Why Do Humans Have So Many Fungal Skin Rashes and Why Are the Fungi Involved so Darn Pretty in Culture?
Many people in biology have an eye for things that are beautiful, and, in the medical laboratory, this tends to lead people to want to work at the Mycology bench. The apparently yucky dermatophyte fungi that cause athlete’s foot, ringworm, and much of what we call ‘jock itch’ grow out as stunningly attractive red, yellow and cream-coloured colonies with dramatic spores, intriguing spiral barbs and eccentric sex lives. Working with them is so addictive that it’s all managers can do to get techs to go back to the bacteriology bench. These (the fungi, not the workers) are mysterious organisms. Most animal species, or even whole family-level groups like ‘the cat family’ (Felidae), have at most one dermatophyte species that regularly colonizes them. Humans, meanwhile, have at least nine ringworm fungi specifically adapted to grow on us! What made our species the Galapagos Islands of the ringworms? Investigation showed that our habit of domesticating different animals – either deliberately, like the horse, or accidentally, like the rat – caused us to collect new ringworms that adapted to us by genetically host-jumping. In addition to scratching our heads, they do give us a lot to think about. Such as “why are they so brightly coloured in culture when they are never colourful in their normal growth on skin?”
Please purchase tickets by March 19, 2019.

2019 AMS Annual General Meeting
2019-03-23 09:30 - 15:00 | University of Alberta Faculty Club, 1435 Saskatchewan Dr NW, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2G9, Canada
We welcome members to join us at our 2019 AGM. This event will be held at the University of Alberta Faculty Club in the Saskatchewan Room.

Parking

Members are respectfully reminded that their parking decal is only valid in V-lot between 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. and after 4:30 p.m. Overflow parking is available in the Windsor Car Park, members and guests must purchase parking tickets. For more information regarding rates please visit: https://www.albertamushrooms.ca//asinfo.ualberta.ca/en/ParkingServices/Visitor-Parking.aspx
​
With the goal of keeping parking spaces free for our lunchtime members and guests, any vehicles parked in the V-Lot outside of these hours without a valid dispenser ticket will be ticketed by Parking Services.

Please RSVP by March 19, 2019. Note that this DOES NOT include Lunch, however if you are interested, lunch tickets and more information can be found here.

AMS Spring Speaker Series: Mr. Carleton Gruger
2019-03-18 18:30 - 19:30 | Edmonton Public Library – Idylwylde (Bonnie Doon), 8310 88 Ave NW, Edmonton, Alberta, T6C 1L1, Canada
The AMS welcomes Mr. Carleton Gruger, Owner and Operator of Gruger Family Fungi. Mr. Gruger will give the following presentation:
Growing Mushrooms on Waste: How Hemp and Mushrooms can Save Agriculture.
This is a public event and is first come, first seated. We hope to see you there!
We encourage you to visit their website here to find out more! Images graciously provided by Gruger Family Fungi.

Christmas Day
2018-12-25 | North Pole, Antarctica
Merry Christmas to all members!
Festivites, family and fun!Countdown to Christmas!0000Days00Hrs00Min00Sec

Sample Event
2018-12-15 08:00
Contrary to popular belief, Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It has roots in a piece of classical Latin literature from 45 BC, making it over 2000 years old. Richard McClintock, a Latin professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looked up one of the more obscure Latin words, consectetur, from a Lorem Ipsum passage, and going through the cites of the word in classical literature, discovered the undoubtable source. Lorem Ipsum comes from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” (The Extremes of Good and Evil) by Cicero, written in 45 BC. This book is a treatise on the theory of ethics, very popular during the Renaissance. The first line of Lorem Ipsum, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..”, comes from a line in section 1.10.32.

Mushroom Cultivation 101
2018-11-29 19:00 - 21:00 | Nose Hill Library, 1530 Northmount Dr NW, Calgary, Alberta, T2L 0G6, Canada
Tara Stephens will give a talk outlining the cultivation process and some common species and techniques for growing mushrooms at home.
Tara is a conservation biologist with a keen interest in permaculture, local food systems and community building. Although she works primarily with endangered wildlife, her deeper interests lie in building regenerative ecosystems at a variety of scales that include human beings.
Tara is intrigued by the ecological, medicinal and nutritional roles that fungi play and excited to collaborate with others to learn how to continue to integrate fungi into our food systems, ecosystems and lives.
