Your First 4 Mushrooms – A Novice Mushroom Hunter's Hitlist

Editor’s Note: Last weekend, I had the privilege of leading a mushroom walk at Pickards Mountain Eco-Institute. As I have come to expect, the class was filled with curious, enthusiastic students, a good number of whom self-identified as novice mushroom hunters, and Read More

A Lesson in Lepidella – Overview of Common NC Amanitas

Editor’s Note: When I first started hunting mushrooms in North Carolina, I was awestruck by the diversity of fungi that fill our forests and fields. In particular, North Carolina is rich in Lepidella mushrooms, which is a section of the Amanita genus. Experts opine that there Read More

Paleolithic "Red Lady" Ate Mushrooms…19,000 Years Ago

Editor’s Note: Although I spend a lot of time on this blog writing about edible wild mushrooms, I have a particular fascination with the history of the human-fungus relationship. Historians, anthropologists, and ethnomycologists (those who study the connection between mushrooms Read More

Mushroom Identification Tips and Fungal Taxonomy

There are two kinds of folks in this world: people who think dualistically, and people who don’t. My Taoist-Catholic dad shared that goofy little bit of wisdom with me when I had all my mushroom identification books spread out on the Read More