2025 Parks Report

You may not know this but removing fungi from their substrate or even collecting them from New York City Parks is illegal and subject to a hefty fine. The club however is exempt from this rule because we have a research permit from the New York City Parks Department which allows us to remove fungi for research purposes. We take this focus on research very seriously. We log every species that we encounter on our walk list – you may have seen our Recorder David Hutchinson enter observations on his iPad during a walk. These walks lists now go back over 17 years, a very valuable longitudinal dataset on New York City’s fungal diversity. You can access these walk lists and that database on our website – it’s accessible to the public and allows for all kinds of custom data pulls.

As part of our research permit we are obliged to deliver a research report to the parks department at the end of every year, to share some of our discoveries and report on the state of fungi in the city’s parks. We like to keep these reports topical. This year’s report looks at the impact of lower than average rainfall and the recent wildfires in the park. It also reports on the state of invasive fungi and the long term impact of higher temperatures on mycorrhizal fruiting windows. Finally, we like to keep tabs on species new to New York City and species accumulation over time. If you’re interested it can be found here.