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All California Club Foray
January 27-29, 2012

What They're Saying!

We had a FABULOUS time at the foray. We are so grateful to you, David and others who organized and led the weekend. Food and accommodations were great, everyone was cheerful and friendly, and I learned alot. I wish I had taken more time with the lab ID work, microscopes and computers. I will almost certainly return next December, rent an apt with kitchen and try to find more California edibles to cook up ourselves. ~Lynn Ovenden, Ontario, Canada

Thank you for arranging the Albion Foray. Everything was very well planned. Wonderful food! Wonderful people! I hope to see you on another trip. ~Elke McKee, Rocklin, California

Thank you for allowing me to participate in the 2012 ACCF. I certainly enjoyed playing with all the folks who attended. And I loved helping the lady from B.C. accomplish her dream of bringing black trumpets home. A great event! ~Ryane Snow, Mendocino, California

We had a great time, great weather and good collecting up at the Albion Field Station this past weekend. Ironically for a taxonomic foray, it was the edible species that ruled. Go figure. Some folks seemed to think that was just fine, though.

We more geeky types were a bit disappointed in the diversity, but by the end of the foray, we had over 200 species identified, and several really really cool ones, like these three already up on Mushroom Observer:

Entocybe nitidumA brilliantly blue Entocybe nitidum Gibellula sp.A spider-munching Cordyceps anamorph Arrhenia chlorocyaneaAnd a delicate blue-green Arrhenia chlorocyanea
© photos by David Rust and Debbie Viess

Perhaps we were just more than a bit spoiled by the incredible fungal explosion of last fall: the University groups up there in November 2011 collected their all time high number of species: 333.

Peter Werner donated scopes to the lab and Alan Rockefeller completed the collection of scopes on Saturday. The hopeless geeks availed themselves as necessary, and others, just learning, took peeks at the interesting forms that lie beneath our normal vision.

We even got to answer the question of just where does the hymenium (spore producing surfaces) occur on that crowd-pleasing, slime-coated, super abundant Leotia lubrica (on the top of the cap), and saw its wonderfully segmented spores in asci, after Peter prepped a beautiful slide example for us.

Dissecting scopes provided us with a worms eye view, and even some micro-wildlife sightings! It's a jungle out there.

happy campers

Let's get a photo of these marvelous pig's ears! © photo by David Rust

Folks browsed the myco-library, checked out and marvelled at the many fungal collections, and noted with interest things like black spore-drop on the plate of Bulgaria inquinans (poor man's sugar-free licorice) and a perfect representation of a Gomphus (Turbinellus) floccosus in orangey spore drop outline!

As always, folks followed their passions and interests.

Foray to Fern Creek Road

Group that ventured out to Casper Orchard Road © photo by David Rust

Else Vellinga gave a great talk on Friday night about collecting fungi for science titled, "From Blitz to Trench: Inventorying California's Mycoflora," where she discussed both past and ongoing fungal survey like those at Point Reyes and in Yosemite, some of the fungi collected and the various people involved. In other words, why we do the thing that we do!

Else and two UC Berkeley students, Nhu Nguyen and Thea Chesney, helped her in the vouchering of various specimens and also shared their knowledge one on one with the group. It was a great place to ask your fungal questions and get some great answers.

On Saturday evening, Debbie Viess presented, "Amanitas of Eastern Europe, through a North American Eye,” in which she touched on the story of Tatiana Urkachen, a 7th generation shaman of the Tungas tribe of Siberia, and the various effects of Fly Agaric mushrooms.

The food was good, the lodging was very comfortable and best of all, the company was marvelous! Good to see so many returning faces and meet new ones. What a great hobby/passion/obsession we all share!

Thanks to all for making it another great ACCF weekend. See you again in 2014!