Category Archives: Natural History

Disruption… It’s all part of the plan.

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The most recent blog from the Colorado Mycoflora project mentioned a “Big Move”. We’ll here’s some clarification as to what that means. As you may well know, the Colorado Mycoflora Project is run through the Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi, which is part of the Department of Research and Conservation at Denver Botanic Gardens. The Department is currently gearing up to move into new digs in March of 2020. The department and its associated herbaria/fungaria (Kathryn Krebel Herbarium and the Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi) have had to deal with more than it’s fair share of disruption over the past couple months in effort to move into this shiny new place…

  • Artists sketch of the front of the new Freyer-Newman Center for Science, Art, and Education at Denver Botanic Gardens.

Part of the disruption involved dealing with breaking down, packing up and moving the conservation genetics laboratory into the herbarium. To pack up the lab, the department worked in shifts to box up and organize laboratory equipment and supplies. Items that weren’t critical for continued research over the next several months, were carefully packaged and labeled for offsite storage. Everything that is needed to get population genetics and molecular systematic data for plants and fungi has found a home in the herbarium.

  • Packing the lab up.
  • Organizing to ship to offsite storage.
  • Our empty lab.

To fit the lab into the herbarium, a lot organization needed to take place, and a lot of space that was previously held supplies for specimen processing had to be repurposed. One of the big tasks for us was sorting and packing all of the mycological literature. Some of it was old books. But there was also Orson Miller’s Gasteromycete literature that he donated to the Mitchel Fungarium. In addition were old, unpublished manuscripts by Alexander Smith. Much of this will be archived and available through the DBG library for future study.

  • The lab herbarium.

Now that the lab has been set up, we’ve been focusing on preparing the herbarium for the big move. We’ve been imaging the fungal collections for insurance purposes, and we’re also strategizing the reorganizing of the collections to reflect systematic relationships in fungi. Our new facilities will be exciting to break in, but the transition will be extreme. The herbarium will be moved above ground, from relative obscurity, to front and center in the new building. In fact, as soon as you walk in the front door of the Freyer-Newman center in the large atrium, the herbarium is positioned directly in front of you (see image below). The laboratory space will be on the second floor. It will more than double in size, with a superior space for conservation genetics, and a brand new ecology lab.

  • The main entrance.
  • From the central atrium looking toward the herbaria.
  • Vera, speaking to Sam’s ghost, marveling how far the fungal collections have come.
  • View from the staff offices into the herbarium work area.
    The fungal collections are through the doorway directly across.
  • The fungal collection space.
  • The botanical collection space.

It’s a very busy and very exciting time for us. In a few months, I’ll start sharing our first experiences.

Andy…

Putting in work…

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Thomas Jenkinson digging out a particularly picturesque Amanita gemmata

It’s been a while since the last post. A lot has happened between now and then and I’d like to take this opportunity to share what we’ve been up to. Understandably, after our successful crowdfunding campaign in August we took a “break” in September to take stock of everything that had happened. If you’re not already familiar with the details:

  • Our first weekend in August took Vera and I to Aspen Center for Environmental Studies, as well as Sam Mitchel’s old ranch in Edwards CO. For that trip we were in the awesome company of Dr. Henry Beker, his colleague Linda Davies, and our good friend Amy Honan from Western States Colorado University. Here’s the post of that trip for deets.
  • The second weekend was the CMS Fair with Michael Kuo. Post1. Post2. It was also the week we implemented a new protocol for processing mushrooms.
  • Week three took us to the Telluride Mushroom Festival. A lot of fun. Looking forward to next August.
  • The last weekend of August I went to Red River, NM to visit and mingle with the New Mexico Mycological Society at their annual foray.

In September we started to tackle our specimens gathered from August. We did this by implementing a new protocol that I’ll discuss in a bit more detail in another blog. We also did a few extra forays, but perhaps the most memorable was the filming I did with Ed and Ikuko Lubow for the PBS show Urban Conversion. Whether or not we produced anything worth putting on television we’ll all have to wait until April when the new season comes out. That being said, I think we all had a great time collecting and talking about the importance of fungi.

A form of black truffle (probably Tuber aestivum) thinly sliced with a form of matsutake (probably Tricholoma magnivelare) with pine nuts and drizzled with a balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Accompanied with a sweet desert wine like a port. I’ll have to get Micheal from Cafe Marie-Jeanne, Chicago, to clarify for me.

October turned into another busy month of mycology and travel.  The first weekend of the month I made my annual pilgrimage to Chicago to visit with friends and to take part in the festive trek around Chicago’s many neighborhoods, AKA the Chicago Marathon. One nice visit was to my friend Michael Simmons’ restaurant Cafe Marie-Jeanne. It’s relevant given the fungal inspired charcuterie plate we had there. [SHOUT OUT TO MIKE!]
I also was able to make a visit my old home, the Chicago Botanic Garden and sit down with Greg Mueller to chat about project ideas.

After Chicago I headed to Salem Oregon for the North American Mycological Association annual foray. This year was my first as the official Voucher Coordinator. The experience turned out well. Largely thanks to an excellent vouchering crew. The Voucher Committee is lead by Voucher Chair Patrick Leacock, myself, then Wyatt Gasswick, and Bruch Reed. Along for the experience was a great group of student assistants that included Stephen Russel (Purdue University, and North American Mycoflora Project), Christin Swearingen (U. Alaska – Fairbanks), Elise O’Brien (Lane Community College, Eugene OR), Chance Noffsinger (Montana State University), and not least, former CBG alumnus Nik Desai who conveniently resides in Portland.

  • David Hibbett’s “Big Tree” made an appearance.
  • Staging area for vouchering collections

With these folks, and the excellent contributions of the NAMA foray participants, we were able to make upwards of 330 collections, with a number of lichen species that had yet to be added to the total. All told we expect there to be over 350 collections – and nearly as many species – during an event that was supposedly held too early in the season. But I guess that’s what the Pacific Northwest is like for mushroom hunting. A “slow” year here would be considered a boon nearly anywhere else on the continent.

Voucher Assistant Elise O’Brien helps a NAMA member recall important voucher information from the foray while other participants diligently fill out their specimen labels.

Now that we’re back, more or less, we’ve been accessioning this year’s collections using new accessioning protocols. I’ve also been courting our volunteers and students to contribute to this blog.  Next month I hope to highlight some of the new protocols and perhaps introduce a schedule of topics you’ll be seeing in the future.

With this, I’ll wish you a Happy Thanksgiving chocked full of mushroom infused stuffing and gravy!  Cheers…

Colorado Mycoflora Project at the CMS Fair

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As I write this on Saturday, August 11th, were in the midst of setting up for the Colorado Mycological Society’s Mushroom Fair at Denver Botanic Gardens. This year the CMS has brought in Dr Michael Kuo of Mushroomexpert.com as the Fair’s resident identifier.

This year’s Fair is particularly exciting because it’s the first year that we’re promoting the Colorado Mycoflora Project. Hopefully we’ll be able to find new donors for our crowdfunding efforts. We’re also giving a trial run to a new method of processing specimens. With the ability to use barcodes and a scanner, we’re working to digitize all of the metadata for every specimen that enters the Fair.  While we won’t accession every collection into the herbarium, this technique should provide us with invaluable collections level data for the overall Colorado Mycoflora Project.

Stay tuned to learn more about our progress.

Now, BACK TO WORK!

CMS_SpecimenLabels

Specimen information forms and slips with fair ID numbers and barcodes.

CMS_Fair_Prep

Saturday morning gathering of the team. Getting energized and ready to set up for the fair and process 100’s of specimens.

CMS_Fair_SpecimenReceiving2

Processing specimens for Sunday’s fair on Saturday. Amy Honan in the foreground. Vera and Michael Kuo at the Identification Table in the background.

Why Fungi?

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Plants are at the pinnacle of terrestrial life and the energy they harness from sunlight flows down to every other land-dwelling organism on the planet. What is often taken for granted is that plants, as we know them, would not exist without fungi. Fungi are essential to ecosystem health. They are critical symbionts that help plants grow. They help to such an extent that they make trees possible. Think about that. Trees would not be able to achieve the sizes they do without essential nutrients supplied to them by their fungal partners. In addition, the massive amounts of structural tissue that plants produce in the form of cellulose cannot be metabolized by the vast majority of organisms. Fungi, on the other hand, are the planet’s most efficient decomposers of plant-based carbohydrate, converting an otherwise indigestible molecule into nutritious fungal matter, and providing critical resources for other organisms in the ecosystem’s food web.

The Colorado Mycoflora Project is a regional contributor to the North American Mycoflora Project.  The more than 2,300 species of Colorado macrofungi accessioned in the Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi represents a small fraction of the diversity likely found in the Southern Rockies. Through greater regional sampling and the use of DNA sequence data this project will provide knowledge and educational opportunities about the diversity of macrofungi of the Southern Rocky Mountains.

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