President's Message

Theresa Halula

Nominations for the MSSF Council will open in February. Any member in good standing and considering a role on the MSSF Council may stand for election. Provide a short statement of experience and interest for consideration. Council Members represent the interests of all members. The Council meets monthly from August through May to manage operations, establish, and schedule activities and implement policy for MSSF. The current Council Members have requested young members consider leadership roles with Council to extend member representation and succession through time. MSSF elects councilors at large and an executive team each year.

Please send correspondence to me at theresa_halula@yahoo.com

MSSF Bylaws can be found here: http://www.mssf.org/secure/By_Laws_2014.pdf

Forays have been a wonderful way for us to get out and enjoy mushrooms and the company of others. We’ve had a bountiful fruiting season. The hedgehogs and black chanterelles are still coming. Moisture has been sparse for a few weeks, so consider another trip to the woods after our next rain. The National Weather Service predicts light cooling by Friday, January 28 with light rain chances returning towards the end of the month into early February. This brings us closer to spring fruiting, starting in mid-April and continuing through May. MSSF will be making forays for Morels. After a few years of serious fires, we expect there will be many places to find Morels this year. Start with lower elevations and move upwards as the Morel season progresses.

MSSF volunteers spent the evening at the Exploratorium’s After Dark event on January 6th featuring Fungi. We enjoyed showing spore printing and microfeatures of fungi to the visitors that attended.

The MSSF Photo Foray documentation replaced the Fungus Fair Foray collections and display this year. MSSF produces a list to append to the annual survey we have maintained for 50 years! For any of you that have been taking photographs of fungi between December 1 and January 30 please upload your observations to iNaturalist.org to record what was up in the bay region this fall/winter season.

A “Project” on iNaturalist.org called Mycological Society of San Francisco was established to gather our collective observations together as a group. When you select the “join” button for that group in the application, your observations will show up there. One of the most satisfying results of uploading is that fungi identification will be confirmed or corrected by more than one person. If you haven’t yet opened a free iNaturalist.org account and shared your collections with the group, go ahead and try it.

A special thank you goes to Gregg Miller for the many weekend forays to Salt Point. 250 members have taken advantage of these events and learned a lot about mushrooms. We also appreciate the work of Curt Haney and Paul Koski taking members out closer to home in San Francisco Parks. We want to welcome all our new members joining us on these outings! You are most welcome and may want to host forays next year as new leaders to bring members into the woods. The task of foray leader is not difficult, you would set up a date, setting up reservations, giving directions to the site and meeting everyone at the trail head to start the walk. You might want to consider your first foray as a trip leader with another member that has gone out as a group leader before, then you’ll be ready to lead forays on your own!

Warm regards to each of you.


President's Message Theresa Halula Nominations for the MSSF Council will open in February. Any member in good standing and considering a role on the MSSF Council may stand for election. Provide a short statement of experience and interest for consideration. Council Members represent the interests of all members. The Council meets monthly from August through May to manage operations, establish, and schedule activities and implement policy for MSSF. The current Council Members have requested young members consider leadership roles with Council to extend member representation and succession through time. MSSF elects councilors at large and an executive team each year. Please send correspondence to me at theresa_halula@yahoo.com MSSF Bylaws can be found here: http://www.mssf.org/secure/By_Laws_2014.pdf Forays have been a wonderful way for us to get out and enjoy mushrooms and the company of others. We’ve had a bountiful fruiting season. The hedgehogs and black chanterelles are still coming. Moisture has been sparse for a few weeks, so consider another trip to the woods after our next rain. The National Weather Service predicts light cooling by Friday, January 28 with light rain chances returning towards the end of the month into early February. This brings us closer to spring fruiting, starting in mid-April and continuing through May. MSSF will be making forays for Morels. After a few years of serious fires, we expect there will be many places to find Morels this year. Start with lower elevations and move upwards as the Morel season progresses. MSSF volunteers spent the evening at the Exploratorium’s After Dark event on January 6th featuring Fungi. We enjoyed showing spore printing and microfeatures of fungi to the visitors that attended. The MSSF Photo Foray documentation replaced the Fungus Fair Foray collections and display this year. MSSF produces a list to append to the annual survey we have maintained for 50 years! For any of you that have been taking photographs of fungi between December 1 and January 30 please upload your observations to iNaturalist.org to record what was up in the bay region this fall/winter season. A “Project” on iNaturalist.org called Mycological Society of San Francisco was established to gather our collective observations together as a group. When you select the “join” button for that group in the application, your observations will show up there. One of the most satisfying results of uploading is that fungi identification will be confirmed or corrected by more than one person. If you haven’t yet opened a free iNaturalist.org account and shared your collections with the group, go ahead and try it. A special thank you goes to Gregg Miller for the many weekend forays to Salt Point. 250 members have taken advantage of these events and learned a lot about mushrooms. We also appreciate the work of Curt Haney and Paul Koski taking members out closer to home in San Francisco Parks. We want to welcome all our new members joining us on these outings! You are most welcome and may want to host forays next year as new leaders to bring members into the woods. The task of foray leader is not difficult, you would set up a date, setting up reservations, giving directions to the site and meeting everyone at the trail head to start the walk. You might want to consider your first foray as a trip leader with another member that has gone out as a group leader before, then you’ll be ready to lead forays on your own! Warm regards to each of you.
Mycena News - February