If you like mushrooms and live around the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois, this is your club. We’re not exactly a club. Southern Illinois Mushroom Co-op members are local mushroom growers, wild mushroom foragers, organic farmers, professional mycologists, nature photographers, naturalists and anyone else who appreciates nature and mushrooms. We like to forage for mushrooms together occasionally. We also hunt alone. We utilize social media. We meet throughout southern Illinois once in a while whenever we want to meet as a group, but we have other lives. We pay no dues. Some of our members cultivate edible mushrooms for sale at local restaurants and markets. We never sell wild mushrooms. We share our mushroom knowledge on the Web and at gatherings and learn whatever we want to know, including undiscovered facts about nature and science. Here’s what fascinates us: Mushrooms and other fungi in North America are still surprisingly undocumented by science. New species are waiting to be documented everywhere. Maybe in your backyard. Here’s where ordinary people can help. The mushrooms we find anywhere in nature might be undocumented species. That’s part of our mission. Sometimes we help scientists discover new species by reporting our finds. And some of us just like to eat. Beyond that, we simply are who we are. And every one of you is welcome to join us.http://www.fs.usda.gov/shawneeshapeimage_2_link_0
Let the people forage. illinoismushrooms.com Jan Sundberg NEXT SIMCO EVENT: Giant City Early Summer Foray June 7-8, 2013 Touch of Nature Environmental Center Makanda, Ill. Free--public invited JOIN TODAY! CLICK HERE Buy fresh, locally grown mushrooms from Flyway Family Farm in southern Illinois! Click here. Mushroom cultivation supplies now available from Mycosmith’s Mushroom Farm in Cobden, Ill.! mushroomco-op.org 2013 Mushroom festivals & events in Illinois CLICK HERE
The 2013 Giant City Early Summer Wild Mushroom Foray is less than a month away!
Register today by calling Touch of Nature Environmental Center at (618) 453-1121
 
SEE OTHER EVENTS BELOW
Have you seen the Devil’s Urn Urnula craterium? Click here to find out why you should collect these cup fungi now!