12/4/08

Nhu's mushroom box

Nhu is one of my favorite Flickr contacts. He's always uploading wonderful pictures of plants and other things that interest gardeners. He gave me permission to post these pictures of a fungus fair in Mendocino. I knew you'd enjoy seeing them too.

Nhu's mushroom box

Nhu writes, "Delicate mushrooms need extra protection in the field and a tackle box serves this purpose beautifully." (Nhu's original picture with species identification is here.)

As I understand it, Nhu is a microbiology grad student at UC Berkeley. Nhu writes, "Every fall, professors and students of fungi from UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and SFSU gather in Mendocino for an exciting foray. Mushrooms are gathered during the day and at night they are sorted and displayed by taxonomic groups. It is a fun event which I look forward to each year."

fungus fair

Those women are smelling the mushrooms. Nhu writes, "Smelling mushrooms is sometimes very useful in identification."

fungus fair 2

I took several biology classes when I was in college (but, strangely, not microbiology; I've always regarded that as a hole in my education). Scientific understanding of fungi has grown dramatically just since I was in college. I am woefully behind.

Thank you, Nhu!


ADDED: More Nhu in the comments:
Thanks so much Chuck for featuring my photos on your blog. I'd like to add that smelling fungi is sometimes very enjoyable. You sometimes get pleasant smells like fresh corn, sweet maple syrup, or even cedar. Other times you get rotten fish or bleach.

If anyone is interested in seeing fungal/mushroom diversity, I'd highly recommend the 39th Annual Fungus Fair at the Oakland Museum. You can ask the volunteers at the booth to show you all the ones that are aromatic. It is quite fun. :)

9 comments:

Nhu Nguyen said...

Thanks so much Chuck for featuring my photos on your blog. I'd like to add that smelling fungi is sometimes very enjoyable. You sometimes get pleasant smells like fresh corn, sweet maple syrup, or even cedar. Other times you get rotten fish or bleach.

If anyone is interested in seeing fungal/mushroom diversity, I'd highly recommend the 39th Annual Fungus Fair at the Oakland Museum. You can ask the volunteers at the booth to show you all the ones that are aromatic. It is quite fun. :)

chuck b. said...

Oh, that's this weekend! I just might go. Thank you for the tip.

JvA said...

Fungus fair!

CiNdEe's GaRdEn said...

I have never seen so many mushrooms. Very cool. I have a few varieties in my area and they are always fun to look at. Thanks for sharing(-:

Anonymous said...

Hi Chuck, you must fill in that hole in your education! To see all those fungi on the table was mind boggling. I hope you do go and write all about it. New camera in tow?

Frances

Christopher C. NC said...

That beefy spread in photo #2 looks very delectable. It might even smell good, a bonus.

lisa said...

Wow, that's MY kind of fair!! That looks like an absolute blast...wish I lived closer.

steelystyle said...

Santa Cruz has a lovely fungus fair too; the venue has cool habitat mockups (a nice alternative to the lab specimen display concept), and last year they served candy cap cheesecake...

pauline said...

really cool mushrooms, I like