COMA’s FUNGIPHOTOS & MUSHROOM UNIVERSITY

COMA is the Connecticut-Westchester Mycological Association. Anyone can become a member of our organization by submitting a membership application along with a small $20 fee. Membership entitles you to advance notice of upcoming walks, free lectures with respected mycologists, an occasional cooking demonstration and receipt of our four season newsletter, SPORES ILLUSTRATED! Members in good-standing are also eligible to participate in COMA’s winter seminar series which we have fondly dubbed ‘Mushroom University’.

For the past few years, COMA’s M.U. students have met during the winter months , often with Gary Lincoff, author of the Audubon Field Guide to Mushrooms of North America, to learn more about the many facets of our ‘hobby’: hunting for and collecting wild mushrooms for food, for purposes of identification, for the thrill of being in the woods and looking purposefully for the usually unseen fungal ‘flowers’ of the earth.

There is more to the study of mushrooms than you might at first expect. The purpose of this web site is to introduce you to some of the many areas of interest worth learning more about. On these pages you will find photos and comments on mushrooms common to our region, and which we regularly find on our club’s scheduled walks. We will also offer several short ‘lessons’ for the amateur mycologist on a range of topics from recommended clothing to wear on a mushroom hunt; to learning about edible mushrooms and their poisonous look-a-likes.

We will direct you through links to several excellent field guides and helpful web-sites that you will want to investigate. Of course, the best way to learn about wild mushrooms is to closely shadow someone who has experience hunting, identifying and eating them and to ask lots of questions. This is why we always recommend that you join a local mushroom club!
YOU ARE INVITED TO VISIT www.comafungi.org