When a quadrillion gorgeous Amanita muscarias are the tip of the fungal iceberg, you know you've had a great foray.
Hello Steemit!
It's been awhile, over two months, since my last mycology post. I've been hella busy in the interim, both at my actual, IRL job, as well as working on my flash fiction/short story subreddit r/LFTM.
But the last two weeks has been absolutely tremendous for me as I had the extreme pleasure of journeying around southern Chile in the company of some of the preeminent mycologists and Fungi enthusiasts in the world.
The foray was led by Giuliana Furci of the Fungi Foundation, a Chilean non-profit founded and run by Giuliana.
The Fungi Foundation is an incredible organization. Whether furthering public education or achieving legislative and regulatory change in Chile and around the world, Giuliana and the Foundation are working tirelessly on behalf of the unique and often overlooked Kingdom of Fungi.
During the course of this trip I had the immense pleasure of getting to know Giuliana, as well as my other incredibly knowledgeable and generous travel companions. I was able to work hands on collecting and cataloguing over 150 fungal specimens to add to The Fungi Foundations fungorium, a collection of, now, over 800 dried specimens, some of them unique or exceedingly rare in the field of mycology.
Sometimes working late into the night, capturing images like these Ramaria spores, I was able to learn a ton, about microscopy and starting a rigorous Fungi collection.
I finally got some experience using a 100x oil immersion lens, and got much needed guidance about mount preparation and staining. I learned much more about depth of field issues and how to identify microscopic fungal structures more accurately. I saw the surface structures of a fungal spore for the first time for goodness sake!
Part of my learning experience was also finding out everything I didn't know and what resources I could use to rectify my ignorance. With that in mind I have several books en route which should help solidify my intellectual gains, and I'm currently vetting several possible microscope upgrades that should allow me to do much finer microscopic work.
In addition to learning a great deal about how to be a better amatuer mycologist, I also had the pleasure of seeing some of the most beautiful mushrooms in the world, with some of the nicest people I've ever met.
Mushrooms the likes of which I could never have dreamt of seeing in person, like these Chlorociboria.
Gorgeous and implausible beauties like this bright green Entoloma, all of which I did my absolute best to capture in as much detail as possible.
Whether myxomycete, like this lilely Leocarpus species, or fungus, the organisms we encountered on this trip were absolutely breathtaking.
Over the next weeks and months I will be writing about the amazing life I had the pleasure witnessing and documenting alongside my fellow travellers. At the same time I will be documenting what I hope will be the building of a personal fungorium of local species growing on the streets and parks of New York City.
The result, I hope, will be a resurgence of mycology content in greater depth and detail, covering species of greater complexity and general awesomeness, than I was capable of providing before.
All of this was made possible by the Steemit and the awesome people behind 
Thank you so much for your support.
On the one hand,
However, it was 
Without that base of knowledge, let alone the financial support, I would never have gone to Chile (or seen CERN and the CMS for that matter). This has been a banner year for me, and Steemit and
I am super excited to be back with so much to share. I'm not sure what schedule I'll keep exactly as I try to balance work with Steemit and reddit, but if everything goes according to plan I should be able to provide new and awesome mycological content in the coming months.
Thank you all!
Photos are my own