COVID-19: Courses and Meetings Cancelled

In response to the current COVID-19 (coronavirus) public health threat, the Board of Directors of the Mycological Society of Toronto has made the decision to cancel upcoming events. The health and safety of our members and the community is of utmost importance to the MST. We anticipate remaining on hiatus at least until the end of April.

At this time, cancelled events include:

March 23rd members meeting

March 30th course (Field Identification of Gilled Mushrooms: Looking Beyond the Obvious)

April 6th course (12 Easy Genera: An Introduction to Field Identification of Mushrooms)

April 20th members meeting

Members who have registered for education courses will have their registration fees refunded and will have access to advance registration when courses are rescheduled.

At the moment it is not clear if the spring mushroom dinner or the spring foray season will go ahead as scheduled. We will continue to take guidance from public health agencies and advise our members when our programmes resume.

Thank you for your continued support of the MST. Please feel free to contact [email protected] at any time if you have questions or concerns.

Fungi in coral reefs exist as endoliths where they penetrate carbonate structures, endobionts where they are associated with living organisms such as corals, sponges & holothurians, as saprotrophs in coral mucus, plant detritus, sediments & water column & as pathogens in hard & soft corals. Image: Fungia scutaria - Mushroom coral (not fungi) public domain from NOAA. #fungi #endolith #mycology #marinefungi https://www.instagram.com/p/B7WYA1ygHmY/?igshid=126scalj1otb3

Almost like a fungi, an individual Rafflesia grows as thread-like strands of tissue completely embedded within its host cells in which nutrients & water are obtained. Rafflesia is only visible when it bursts through the host plant to reveal its flowers. #flowerlikeafungi #fungi #flora #otherwordly #parasitic https://www.livescience.com/largest-corpse-flower-bloom-discovered.html (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6_4AxXAzGe/?igshid=1u3pxqdls84s7

Happy 2020 • Blue Oyster mushroom ~ Pleurotus ostreatus var. columbinus #fungi #mushroom #blueoyster (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B60pd6dAkIr/?igshid=4hl2lohv0azr

Here’s our top 9 posts for 2019 • Reflecting over all we’ve learned & shared this past year & all the amazing experiences yet to come in this new decade! Thanks to all our fungi friends & fam out there! Keep the connections growing 🌈🍄🎶⚡️May the spore be with you! 🧙🏼‍♂️#Mycelium #mushroom #fungi #mycology #mycological #newyear (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6lY3fcAJcp/?igshid=lz8jlqdalw9x

Came across this Holiday Shiitake stuffing yrs ago- not sure where but here it is! @jkgourmet granola is used instead of bread • Holiday Shiitake Stuffing 300-400 g fresh shiitake caps 1c- celery (choppped) 1 sml onion (chopped) 3 c JK Gourmet Granola (grain/gluten-free) 1 c fresh Italian parsely .5c of fresh taragon 3-4 fresh sage leaves Tear Shiitake caps & sautee them in oil or butter until slightly crisped, add Tarragon. Remove from pan. Sautee onion & celery (until onion is translucent). Chop Parsley & Sage • In a large bowl add JK gourmet Granola in black cherry & apple and Blueberry & black current (1.5 c of each). add other ingredients, mix together - stuff bird or bake in oven at 350f for 30 minutes. Salt/pepper to taste *Optional: Italian sausage. (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6gn5WEAADI/?igshid=1lxc6tnho0y54

Oyster mushrooms are SO good! Another yummy recipe from our friends down under @urbanspore 🌈 Oyster Mushroom Chips • These low carb oyster mushroom chips are extremely filling with their high fibre content making them a truly satisfying snack. 500 grams of oyster mushrooms 1/3 cup olive oil 1 tsp salt Additional herbs & spices as desired. How do you like to cook up your oyster mushrooms? 😋 #mushrooms #recipes #vegan #vegetarian #omnivore #fungi #oystermushrooms Next recipe: Shiitake holiday stuffing! #shiitakemushrooms (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6YKoRcA52b/?igshid=1uhnqr2vobxmf

Wondering how to cook up Lion’s Mane Mushrooms? Try these amazing pakoras! Lion’s Mane pakora recipe by @urbanspore SUPER yummy 😋 400 grams of lion’s mane mushroom 1 cup chickpea flour 1 cup water 1 tsp garlic powder (I used fresh) 1/2 tsp cumin 1/2 tsp coriander 1/4 tsp cayenne 1/2 tsp garam masala • full recipe can be found here 👉🏽 https://urbanspore.com.au/blog/lions-mane-pakora-recipe/ #mushroom #holidays #vegan #pakoras #lionsmanemushroom #australia (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6SIw8dAg6j/?igshid=cbir0i17xqc

Naturally occurring Festivus tree ornaments, Orange tentacled jelly alien or Cedar-Apple rust?! This orange tentacled looking fungi is known as Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae & spends part of its life cycle on Eastern Red Cedars growing around orchards. The fungus produces reddish-brown galls. With the 1st warm rains of spring, the spore horns become gelatinous & produce teliospores. Wind carries the spores to apple leaves & attach themselves, germinate & enter the leaf or fruit tissue. Yellow lessons develop in 1-3 wks. Later in the summer, spores from the apple leaves (aeciospores) are produced & winds carry these spores back to Eastern Red Cedars completing the infectious cycle. Quince, Hawthorn are also common hosts & many species of Juniper can substitute for the Eastern Red cedars. #spore #horns #fungi #rustfungus #gall #festivus Images 1&2: Public domain Image 3&4: Gall w/telial horns (spore horns!!) & crab apple leaf showing stomata -public domain. (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6OP3zcAm91/?igshid=1g0ndb123wg3o

Amazing sour dough = bacteria from bug poop? Fungi & bacteria come together forming sour dough starters that, if fed & watered properly can last years, even centuries. But what is the secret of the grail? Turns out it might involve secretions (also known as Frass) from bug guts. 👀 https://www.popsci.com/why-san-francisco-sourdough-tastes-so-good/ #fungi #fermentation #bacteria #sourdough Saccharomyces cerevisiae & Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis SEM image CC BY-SA 3.0 Mogana Das Murtey & Patchamuthu Ramasam (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6JAInYg-ei/?igshid=1jeihsnd4y5dd

What Are The Different Types Of Bread Mold? Rhizopus stolonifer (black bread mold) Penicillium sp. Cladosporium sp. Aspergillus sp. Find out more here, How Can Moldy Bread Be Prevented? Storage & Sour dough starters! https://sciencetrends.com/bread-mold-how-to-identify-types-of-mold "Verschimmeltes Brot 2008-12-07" by Henry Mühlpfordt via Wikimedia Commons is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license. “Rhizopus stolonifer4” by WDKeeper via Wikimedia Commons is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 #bread #fungi #holidaybread #challah #pumpernickel #mold #mould #fuzzy (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6D1Wv-goiS/?igshid=7cu0ao1gb40i

Holiday fungi finds (super interesting oldish blog post @cornellfungi ) A fungus that can grow in maple syrup is not your average everyday mold, it’s a xerophile. Xerophiles grow in places that are too dry & hostile for your average fungus. Wallemia sebi is a xerophilic mold that specializes in growing on things of low water activity, like dried fruits & jams & salted meats & nuts. It grows in salterns (the evaporating beds in which sea salt is produced), & its bumpy little spores are found fairly often in indoor air. It’s so weird & so distantly related to most other molds that a whole new class of fungi was created just for it, class Wallemiomycetes. Find out more about The Fungus in my maple syrup by Dr. Kathie T. Hodge here, http://blog.mycology.cornell.edu/2007/03/20/the-fungus-in-my-maple-syrup/ Image: Kent Loeffler -10cm custard cup of maple syrup w/Wallemia sebi (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6BwdnUgdv9/?igshid=1fpf3nd41c3zu

Up-and-coming packaging solutions made from mushrooms, leaves, and seaweed. @evoware @ecovative @arekapak https://amp.mindbodygreen.com/articles/plastic-packaging-alternatives-companies-leading-the-way #fungi #mushroompackaging #seaweed #biodegradable #sustainable #plasticreplacement (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5-49Wsgt2i/?igshid=xj11zj4b7qbh

From mushroom cultivation, identification to eco-awareness, capitalocene to mycoremediation What fungi books are on your shelf, wish-list or highly recommended? #mycology #fungi #mycophilia #mycelium #education Here are a few of mine. (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B58GAGagZvh/?igshid=aa16txlu0ndk

Some of our members offer workshops in cultivating mycelium for art/design/architectural applications as well as gourmet edibles. Curious how to grow Myco-leather/acoustic tiles & more? @colabto is hosting Forming with Mycelium workshops in January. #fungi #biomaterials #mycelium #ecofriendly #sustainable image shown: SEM of Ganoderma lucidum scanned @carleton_uni nano imaging lab, Forms grown from G. lucidum & P. ostreatus (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B553Fcvgwnl/?igshid=10n8s3a8n23kj

Informative resource from @PublicHealthOn Evidence Brief: Foraged Mushroom Consumption in Ontario 👉🏽 https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/eb-foraged-mushroom-consumption.pdf #mycology #fungi #foraging #ontario (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B53XmPEAtMw/?igshid=jsxhhbejypp3

The MST 2020 Myco-calendar makes a nice gift for your Fungi friends or for you! Calendars can be purchased by contacting [email protected] #mycology #fungi #2020 #calendar #mushroom #gifts (at Toronto, Ontario) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5vwb24gtX0/?igshid=zc9d19f9568e