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.
DAVID W. FISCHER is my name, and I am best known as the author of the best-selling Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America: A Field-to-kitchen Guide (1992, Univ. of Texas Press) and the coauthor of 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 universities, museums, botanical gardens and other venues. I have been a featured guest on Science Friday on National Public Radio (NPR) (click here to listen to NPR's audio archive of the show). I've also been a special guest on "Filthy Riches" on the National Geographic Channel (click here). 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, and taxonomy of select families and genera of ectomycorrhizal mushrooms.
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 live in Syracuse, New York and spend the bulk of my mushroom-hunting time in Onondaga, Oswego, Oneida, Chenango, Tompkins, Cortland, and Broome counties.
I am always glad to hear from folks who have visited my Website, enjoy my books, or both. If you have a mushroom you need help identifying, post clear digital images at the AmericanMushrooms.com Facebook Page and I'll try to take a look.
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 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.
When I'm not collecting, studying, eating, teaching or writing about mushrooms, I can sometimes be found playing the piano and singing a blues-, jazz-, rock-, pop-, and country-based repertoire. I used to gig solo and with scores of musicians as prominent as SAMMY award winning artists Roosevelt Dean and Carolyn Kelly, and with my own trio (check out the sample MP3s I've posted here).
I now dedicate most of my time to global ecological issues, particularly the bio-ecology of global warming and climate change. I am especially active with the Sierra Club. See my informational website, GlobalEcologist.org, for more information.
–David William Fischer
FEATURED PAGES
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 Bill Ciblula, 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
Select Traffic Stats for AmericanMushrooms.com
September 2012 was this Web site's busiest month ever: 186,846 "unique visitors" visited AmericanMushrooms.com for a total of 224,870 visits, viewing a total of 415,627 page views*.
I'd like to thank you all for visiting AmericanMushrooms.com!
SOURCE: AWStats
AMERICANMUSHROOMS.COM SITE INDEX
about • mushroom basics • coolest mushrooms • edible mushrooms •
1,046 mushroom photos! • HOME • lawn & garden mushrooms • mushroom links • medicinal mushrooms
morel mushrooms • mushroom I.D. • mushroom photography • mushroom show • music • mushroom odors • psilocybin mushrooms • schedule • store • tiniest mushrooms • toxic mushrooms
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