North American Mycoflora

The Mycoflora Project

The North American Mycoflora Project is a collaboration between professional mycologists and community scientists to document the distribution of macrofungi throughout North America. It allows the scientific community to tap into the vast amount of knowledge and data amassed by individuals and mycology clubs, and can provide a new focus for amateur efforts. Key components of this project include careful documentation and preparation of specimens (vouchering), depositing these specimens in a herbarium, and DNA sequencing to complement the morphological observations that amateur mycologists already use.

Mycoflora Background

This is a joint project of the North American Mycological Association and the Mycological Society of America. The goal is a massive effort for working toward a North American Mycoflora for Macrofungi.

The first workshop meeting was held July 2012. Each of the presentations are available as PDF or video. Patrick Leacock gave an invited presentation comparing the NAMA Voucher Project with the Chicago Region research. Tom Bruns, U.C. Berkeley, got the project started and continues the goals.

Online tools and resources that will be integrated with the Mycoflora Project include the following.

• iNaturalist photo archive.
• Mushroom Observer photo archive.
• Mycology Collections data Portal (MyCoPortal).
• NCBI (GenBank, BLAST) molecular sequence archive.
• MycoBank taxonomy database.
• Index Fungorum taxonomy database.

Mycoflora projects

• Illinois Mycobiota for the Chicago Region
• California: The Mycota of Santa Cruz County
• California: Point Reyes and Yosemite
  • Point Reyes MycoBlitz
  • Research on Mushroom Names
  • Citizen Mycology, slide show
• Alberta Mycological Society Fungal Database
• Alaska: Interview with Kate Mohatt

North American Mycological Association

The North American Mycological Association promotes, pursues, and advances the science of mycology. NAMA has 80 affiliated clubs and 2,000 amateur mycologist members. It holds annual and regional forays: see the NAMA video from the 2017 foray. The 2018 foray is planned for Oregon.

The NAMA Voucher Collection Project documents and preserves collections from the annual forays. Photographs from the recent forays are available on Mushroom Observer. Patrick has more information and lists here.