Monday, September 15, 2014

Mushrooms!

Goal: Take a class at the community college.
Status: Complete!


KUC held a class this weekend called Mushrooms of Southwest Alaska. Dr. Laursen travels the world studying high latitude mushrooms. We learned a ton of technical stuff, including mushroom anatomy, reproduction, and taxonomy.




 We also went out to four different locations in Bethel to collect samples. Back in the classroom we identified them with help from Dr. L and his assistant Christen. It was amazing how many different types of mushrooms are right here, and how many of them are edible!



We made some spore prints of our specimens, which can be a huge help in identifying a mushroom. We also learned how to break down mushrooms into their genus and species. So much information to take in, but so much fun!




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