Latest PSMS News
Hildegard Hendrickson Free Public ID Clinic
The fall 2024 ID clinics will Start Monday, Sept. 30. from 4pm to 7pm at CUH. For more information click here. As this is subject to change, please always visit our home page to make sure the clinics are on before coming.
PSMS Inclusivity Statement
For over fifty years, the Puget Sound Mycological Society (PSMS) has nurtured collaboration amongst its members for an understanding and appreciation of the wide diversity of mushroom species in the Pacific Northwest. We also depend on a diverse membership to support our mission to foster the understanding and appreciation of mycology as a hobby and a science. In recent months, as systematic inequality in U.S. society is revealed to a broader audience, it becomes clearer that inequality imposes barriers on marginalized groups to participation in a wide variety of activities. PSMS opposes all barriers that limit participation in mycology. PSMS and its board members support a more diverse, inclusive, and welcoming organization where all people, especially those who are underrepresented in our organization and society at large, can enjoy mushrooms and all of the activities associated with them. We realize this will be an on-going conversation and are looking to our members for suggestions on ways to increase diversity, inclusivity, and welcoming. Thank you as we join together to make this long-overdue journey toward systemic equality!
Featured Content
If You Suspect
a Poisoning
Contact a physician or Washington Poison Center: 1-800-222-1222
More Poison InformationSpore Prints Newsletter
Spore Prints is the monthly newsletter of PSMS containing announcements of coming events and speakers, plus a variety of tidbits, trivia, recipes, and research developments.
Spore Prints Archive
Harvesting Rules
Washington state is divided into numerous federal, state, local and Native American jurisdictions. Learn the proper rules for each jurisdiction.
Harvesting Information
Upcoming Events
Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024 - 7:30pm
Monthly Meeting
Matthew Koons: Community Science in Mycology
Click here to join this meeting virtually.
Have you ever wondered, "How do I make a collection that could be used for further research (DNA sequencing/herbarium vouchered collections)?" or "What information should I include when asking another myco-enthusiast an identifcation question?"
If so, please join us at the general membership meeting October 8 when Matthew Koons (current recipient of a Ben Woo scholarship grant) will help answer some of these questions-and more. His talk is entitled "Community Science in Mycology: Vouchering, Observations, and Genetic Sequencing." The talk will be centered around documenting biodiversity on the iNaturalist platform and includes how to make high quality observations, photography techniques, vouchering fungal collections, and how to select specimens for genetic barcoding. It will also touch on recent genetic discoveries in the region, sequencing technologies, how to have your own discoveries barcoded, and how you can contribute to community science.
Matthew Koons is an amateur mycologist who is an active feld surveyor and fungal genetic researcher out of a home lab in Seattle, Washington (supported in part by a PSMS Ben Woo scholarship grant). While primarily focused on fungi, he is also interested in broader biodiversity-particularly native plants, arthropods, and intertidal organisms.
We hope you will join us for this meeting, as it is closely followed by our annual Wild Mushroom Exhibit October 19-20, and details of how you might participate in that exciting show will be discussed.
The membership meeting on October 8, 2024, will be a "hybrid" meeting both in-person at the Center for Urban Horticulture and virtual on Zoom. We will start letting people into the CUH meeting hall at about 7:00 pm and into the Zoom meeting at about 7:15. The lecture will begin at approximately 7:30 pm.