AMERICANMUSHROOMS.COM was formally launched on March 7, 2006 by DAVID W. FISCHER. The site is intended to educate, inform, and entertain the general public in addition to veteran mycophiles and mycologists. Strong emphasis is placed on assuring the accuracy and usefulness of the information provided at the Website. The site now includes 1,046 photos representing some 482 species of fungi.
Welcome to AmericanMushrooms.com. This Web site affords me a great opportunity to share with the general public the marvels and delights of wild mushrooms, which are often referred to as "the higher fungi." It serves as a forum where I can display the results of my many years of studying and photographing these remarkable organisms. And it affords me an opportunity to play an increasingly active role as a promoter, a "champion," of what some might thoughtlessly call "toadstools."
Take a look around, see what might inspire you, see what you might learn. I especially recommend you check out…
I am always glad to get E-mails from folks who have visited my Website. If you have a mushroom you need help identifying, send me a good digital image and I'll gladly take a look (my E-mail address is mycology@aol.com).
If you have suggestions or criticisms, or any problems with the Website, please share them with me. Photographic contributions are welcome, so if you have a good photo of a species I haven't posted photos of yet (or even better shots of species of which I do have photos posted!), send it on. If you enjoy the photos, the information, the amusements, I'll be grateful if you order something from the AmericanMushrooms.com online store. And please, point your friends, relatives, neighbors and co-workers to AmericanMushrooms.com.
Meanwhile, enjoy!
--David Fischer
A number of people have helped me in various ways… without their support and assistance, this site would not be what it is; neither would I be who I am! Joe Bess is the guy who got me seriously interested in mushrooms many years ago, and he remains a great friend. Dr. Tim Baroni is my main mycological mentor; I could never possibly thank him sufficiently. Dr. Alan Bessette coauthored my first two books and taught me a great deal. Richard Aaron, Doug Bassett, Ernst Both, Bill Hollenbaugh, Sue Hopkins, Gary Lincoff, Richard Progovitz, Steve Rains, Dorothy Smullen, Paul Stamets, Walt Sturgeon, Gene Yetter, and the late Ray Fatto and John Boyle; Drs. Jim Ginns, John Haines, Kathie Hodge, Tom Horton, Jim Kimbrough, Dick Korf, Currie Marr, Rod Tulloss, June Wang, Jim Worrall, and the late, great Kent McKnight, Orson Miller, Sam Ristich and Leo Tanghe have each taught me things about fungi that one couldn't learn from any books. Richard, Melody and Pearl Fischer have shown great patience with their father's hobby-gone-berserk, and I can only hope that my work inspires them because it certainly hasn't enriched them financially. Sharon Fisher provided invaluable support during several years of dogged mushroom photography. Bob Schilkie has been a great friend and mushroom-hunting companion, and his shadow has made some of my best photographs what they are. Add to this the hundreds of mycology students and mushroom enthusiasts with whom I have had the glorious privilege of sharing mushroom time afield, in the classroom, and even over the Internet, and anyone must know that I am truly blessed. Thank you all!
Love, David
DAVID W. FISCHER is my name, and I am best known as the coauthor of two major books on mushrooms (mycology): Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America: A Field-to-kitchen Guide (1992, Univ. of Texas Press) and Mushrooms of Northeastern North America (1997, Syracuse University Press). I'm a well known expert on the ecology and identification of wild mushrooms; served for nine years as president of the Central New York Mycological Society (CNYMS) and am also past president of the Northeast Mycological Federation, Inc. (NEMF). I serve as a mushroom identification consultant for the New York State Poison Control Center and for several mycological organizations. I have served on the faculty of the annual Northeast Mycological Foray (the Samuel Ristich Foray) and the annual North American Mycological Association (NAMA) Foray, and have served as program/faculty chair for both. I have lectured throughout the Eastern United States and Canada at such institutions as the State University of New York College of Environmental Science & Forestry at Syracuse University; Queens University in Ontario, Canada; Dartmouth College in New Hampshire; the New York State Museum in Albany; the Rochester Museum & Science Center in Rochester; Ohio State University; and numerous others. Recently I had the privilege of appearing as a featured guest on Talk of the Nation / Science Friday on National Public Radio (NPR). I have had the great privilege and benefit of assisting numerous research mycologists, as they have so often assisted me, and I have collected and contributed specimens for numerous studies. My favorite areas of study in mycology involve the biology, ecology, morphology, taxonomy and systematics of select families and genera of ectomycorrhizal mushrooms, e.g. Lactarius, Amanita, and the cantharelloid, clavarioid and hydnoid fungi.
I welcome invitations to present my slide show for the general public,
Please Don't Call Them Toadstools
or my grand multimedia event,
David Fischer's Wild Musical Mushroom Show.
I am also available to teach classes, workshops and seminars on topics ranging from the basics of finding and identifying edible wild mushrooms to "serious" mushroom taxonomy, biology and ecology.
For more information, contact me at the E-mail address shown near the bottom of this page.
I have been a communications professional most of my life, having been employed as ad agency copywriter and account executive, commercial audio producer, trade newspaper editor, and I've written on a freelance basis for local and national magazines and newspapers, including two columns (Outdoors and Media) for the venerable Syracuse New Times. I've also fabricated sheet metal, managed a store, worked as ward clerk in a busy Syracuse emergency room, and whatever other day job was necessary to make ends meet. At various times I have also played keyboards and sang with a number of local jazz, rock, country and blues bands in the Syracuse and Binghamton NY areas, but I'm presently enjoying a hiatus from that. I live in Syracuse, New York and spend most of my mushroom-hunting time in Onondaga, Oswego, Oneida, Chenango and Cortland counties.
September 2008 was this Web site's busiest month ever. 39,112 "unique visitors" pointed their browsers at AmericanMushrooms.com for a total of 50,511 visits, viewing an average of 3.9 pages per visit for a total of 196,796 page views*. I'd like to thank you all for visiting AmericanMushrooms.com! --AWStats
* -- Total number of 'hits': 2,842,888. ('Hits' is a count of total files served, including misc. graphics… a figure that really shouldn't mean anything to anyone, but since everyone else likes to brag using that stat, I'm posting mine for useless comparison purposes). ;-)
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All content at americanmushrooms.com is Copyright © 2006, 2007 by David W. Fischer. All rights reserved.