Friday Mushroom Discovery Lecture: The State of Fungi in California

The San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden is excited to welcome Christian Schwarz back to the Garden! Christian is a well-known expert in the field and author of ‘Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast’ and the newly released, ‘Mushrooms of Cascadia’. If you’ve heard Christian speak before, you know he’s a fascinating and knowledgeable speaker. And if you haven’t heard him before, you’re in for a treat! Over the past two years, the California Institute for Biodiversity has funded and supported the California Fungal Diversity Survey — a conservation-focused initiative to document fungi across the state with a very high level of systematic rigor. During the course of this project, non-professional collectors have generated a huge amount of information, yielding fascinating new discoveries, and suggesting areas for future research. Christian will provide an overview about what we’ve learned, what we hope to learn, and what the future holds for California’s fungi.