Join us at Mount Rainier Nature Center at 10am to bring your mushroom samples or at 1pm to ask questions about our process or anything fungi. Our experts are excited to see you! Mark your calendars!

Mount Rainier Nature Center is located at 4701 31st Place, Mount Rainier MD, 20712

If you are bringing samples to us, please ensure that the samples have been properly documented on iNaturalist, and that each of your samples has a unique iNaturalist observation number by the time of your arrival. Follow the process below to make your observation:

MAKING AN OBSERVATION

PHOTOGRAPH BEFORE DETACHING!

• Take more than one picture
• Show where the fungus is  growing from (substrate)
• • If attached to something living, identify as much as possible. Ex: conifer, deciduous, oak, american holly, etc.
• Photograph the habit (growing alone, gregarious, in clusters, etc.)
• Take a picture from the top

DETACH

• Take a picture of the underside
• Cut through the spore producing surface and notice if there are changes in color or secretion of latex. If so annotate and photograph
• Add any smell or bruising you observe in the notes section

PREPARING SAMPLE FOR DNA EXTRACTION

• Place the mushroom on a coffee filter, piece of paper, or wax bag
• Write the voucher information: date of collection, location, name of collector, field ID (Russula, Bolete, Agaricus, etc) and iNaturalist observation number.
• Place your sample inside its voucher bag in a dehydrator at 100° until it is dry as cardboard. The timing of his process will vary depending on the size of the mushroom.
• • If you don’t have a dehydrator, you can place the mushroom in your oven using its lowest setting and leaving the door of the oven cracked with a clothespin. Check on this setting every hour to prevent burning or cooking the specimen.
• Once the specimen has been dried, wait for it to cool to room temperature and place the voucher bag and the mushroom inside in a closed ziplock bag to prevent rehydration with humid air. 

In the link below you’ll find the slideshow used for the training on how to make observations and how to label your sample bag to serve as a voucher as well.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18N69qmR7zaUbveKunJVO6vcwY1hSQoYobPJFaUd2HDk/edit?usp=drivesdk

We will receive your properly documented sample with our deepest gratitude 

We are excited to see you there!

-Serenella Linares, Programs Chair & Megan Romberg, Science Advisor
The Mycological Association of Washington, Inc.