Events

Our first talk will look at the history of popular interest in fungi and mushroom clubs. Tracing popular mushroom foraging to the 1880s, DeDe-Panken will discuss an early iteration of American mycophilia which brought a new population of non-professional mushroomers into the field. Like today, they sought a combination of gastronomic, scientific and personal enrichment. She'll argue that the mushroom fad legitimized women’s participation in citizen science by tethering foraging knowledge to elevated, economical cookery and as a public safety necessity to prevent poisoning. Enthusiastic laywomen claimed space and belonging as collectors, writers, illustrators, and club leaders. Yet while expanding opportunities for some, privileged mycologists’ insistence on certain forms of expertise fueled exclusion along class, race and ethnic lines. Ultimately, this research seeks to elucidate tensions surrounding sustenance, science and authority that remain with us to this day.

Rosanne Healy will talk about travels and work to better understand the relationships, ecology, and life history of the group of fungi that we know as “the cup fungi”. These are the fungi that include the famous black perigord truffles, delectable morels, and iconic scarlet cups. They also include many lesser known, but fascinating truffles and cup-shaped, columniform, and saddle-shaped fungi.

Using examples from research that has been done on specimens from the Farlow fungarium I will outline how these specimens contribute to modern taxonomic and systematic studies and how curatorial practices contribute to or distract from accurate study of collections. How was it possible to determine that a species suspected to be extinct was found to be widespread in eastern North America? What can collections tell us about the high and unexpected diversity of species of an often-collected genus of tropical fungi? Where was Charles Wright when he collected Puccinia triarticulata and how did he get there? These and other questions will be examined through the eye of a long serving curator.