November General Meeting- Michael Beug- For the Love of Ascomycetes

In this talk, Dr. Beug will illustrate the spectacular and diverse world of Ascomycete fungi in the Pacific Northwest. You will learn about edibles from morels to truffles, fungal habitats and fungal lifestyles. He will describe what Ascomycetes are. You will learn about unusual fungi, some with medicinal applications, some with industrial uses, some that cause plant diseases, some that cure plant diseases, and some that control insects.

He describes how he came to write the book Ascomycete Fungi of North America with coauthors Alan and Arleen Bessette, the first color–illustrated book to cover North American Ascomycetes.

Beug is a member of the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) where he served for six years as Editor of the journal McIlvainea. He currently is Chair of the Toxicology Committee, Chair of the Editorial Committee, member of the literature committee and member of the Education Committee. Michael was winner of the 2006 NAMA Award for Contributions to Amateur Mycology. He has prepared over two dozen PowerPoint presentations about mushrooms for the NAMA Education Committee (available from NAMA as a 2-DVD set).

Michael is currently Vice President and past President of The Pacific Northwest Key Council, a group dedicated to writing macroscopic keys for the identification of fungi. His specialties are the genusRamaria, all toxic and hallucinogenic mushrooms, and Ascomycetes. He is also doing research on oak-associated fungi of the Columbia River Gorge, especially Cortinarius species. He regularly writes about mushrooms in McIlvainea, The Mycophile, Fungi Magazine, and Mushroom: The Journal of Wild Mushrooming. He is coauthor of MatchMaker, a free mushroom identification program covering 4,092 taxa with over 5,000 images of 1,984 illustrated taxa.