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Today on the Mushroom Hour Podcast we are honored to be joined by Else Vellinga. In her career as a mycologist, Else has described 22 new mushroom species in California. Her most recent work is at the University and Jepson Herbaria at UC Berkeley, and at UCSF, on the Microfungi Collections Digitization project. She received her training at the National Herbarium of the Netherlands, and earned her PhD at the University of Leiden (layden). Additionally, Else is a researcher and professor with the Bruns Laboratory at UC Berkeley. The main motivation for her taxonomic work is that it lays the basis for efforts to include mushroom species in nature management and conservation plans. She has proposed several species for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a global database of endangered species. She concentrates especially on Lepiotas, or Parasol mushrooms. Else is an avid knitter and uses mushroom dyed yarn for her creations.
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All the information discussed in this episode is for educational and entertainment purposes only! We do not encourage the use of any illicit and/or regulated substance.
Today on the Mushroom Hour Podcast we have the honor of speaking with authors Virginia Haze and Dr. K. Mandrake. Dr. Mandrake is a proponent of psychedelics from both a scientific and personal growth perspective. His long and varied education has mostly centered on biology, toxicology and mycology, culminating in a PhD in microbiology, which greatly influenced his home mushroom growing methods. Virginia Haze is a prolific writer and photographer with many books under her belt. She’s a regular contributor to publications that focus on recreational drugs and her photography has appeared in many books. She learned to grow mushrooms under the tutelage of Dr. K. Mandrake, has co-authored two books on the growing and use of shrooms, and has since become a fierce proponent of psilocybin decriminalization and the dissemination of science-backed information relating to psychedelics. I’m excited to speak with these two myconauts today about the two works they’ve written together, “The Psilocybin Mushroom Bible” and “The Psilocybin Chef Cookbook”.
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Today on Mushroom Hour we are joined by freethinker, activist and mycologist Dr. Patricia Kaishian. Dr. Kaishian received a B.A in Biology with a concentration in Environmental Studies in 2013 from Wheaton College, MA. In August 2020, she defended her Ph.D. in Forest Pathology & Mycology from SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry. She is broadly trained in the taxonomy of macro and micro fungi, with considerable field experience in the Neotropics. Currently, she is working as a postdoctoral researcher in the Aime Lab at Purdue University where she is serving as curator of fungi at the Arthur Fungarium & Kriebel Herbarium. Beyond more traditional scientific work, Dr. Kaishian also works in the realms like the philosophy of science, feminist bioscience, ecofeminism and queer theory, exploring how mycology and other scientific disciplines are situated in and informed by our sociopolitical landscape. She is a founding member of the International Congress of Armenian Mycologists, a research organization comprised of ethnically Armenian mycologists who seek to simultaneously advance mycological science and Armenian sovereignty and liberation.
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Today on Mushroom Hour we have the privilege of interviewing Phil Ross of MycoWorks. A pioneer in cultivating living materials for art and design, Phil began using mycelium in the 1990s as a medium for sculpture. Almost three decades on, Phil and his team of artists are now complemented by engineers, biologists, production specialists and material scientists in bringing the first Fine Mycelium™ material, Reishi™, to the world. Anyone who sees his work or hears him speak, can’t help but have their mind set alight by a spark of inspiration. Phil is one of those unique individuals who can take something ancient, like fungi, and derive novel uses for it that not only shift how we see fungi, unlock new ideas and new fields of discovery, but really expand humanity’s entire “realm of the possible”. His lifetime of work with mycelium hints at the vast ocean of infinite opportunities that await humanity as we explore kingdom fungi.
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Today on the Mushroom Hour we are excited to have the chance to learn from Ja Schindler. Ja is a fungi researcher/ teacher/ activist/ farmer based in the Southeast Cascade Mountains of Oregon on traditional lands of the Kalapooya peoples. Motivated by desires to challenge issues of environmental injustice, Ja founded Fungi For the People in 2010, which serves as an outlet for collaboratively developing appropriate methods for cultivating and problem solving with people and fungi. As a hands-on cultivator and community organizer he is a focal point of the inspiring community science movement. I can’t wait to hear his take on the role community mycology can play in empowering people and helping us develop a more balanced relationship with our environment.
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Today on Mushroom Hour we have the privilege of speaking with Courtney Tyler. Courtney is the founder of Hips and Haws Wildcrafts, based in the Wicklow mountains of Ireland. Hips and Haws is a project all about wild food, fermentation, folk herbalism, fungi, foraging and wildcrafting- which is making food or medicine from plants and mushrooms sourced from the wild. She is a keen forager and spends much time wandering the hedgerows and forests of Ireland, searching for wild edibles to preserve as food or medicine or to add to her collection of fermented food and drinks. She passes her knowledge on through her foraging walks and tours, workshops, crafting and recipes. Her passion, knowledge, and her clarity in explaining and sharing her excitement inspires us to re-kindle our connection to the wild around and within us.
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Thea Chesney is a lifelong Sierra Nevada foothill resident and naturalist. She has had an interest in mushrooms (and plants, and the rest of the natural world) since early childhood, which gradually became an obsession. She holds a B.S. in forestry from UC Berkeley, with an emphasis in botany and natural sciences. During her time at Berkeley, she spent plenty of time working and hanging out in the Berkeley mycology labs and continues to return to campus to provide specimens for and aid in teaching their mushroom ID course. She worked on a mushroom survey crew for the U.S. Forest Service around Mt. Shasta for several seasons, which allowed her to become intimately familiar with the fungal inhabitants and ecology of the area. Since then, she has continued with the Forest Service as a botanist for a long-term California-wide meadow monitoring project. She teaches occasional workshops in mushroom and plant identification, both for work and independently. She has also been involved with the California Rare Fungi Working Group since its inception. Her fieldwork and her own studies of plants and fungi are centered in the Sierra Nevada and other mountains of California, and she is currently working on a field guide to mushrooms of these understudied regions with Noah Siegel and Christian Schwarz.
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Get Your Tickets for the 1st Oakland Psychedelic Conference: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/oakland-psychedelic-conference-tickets-169188460239?ref=eios
Today on the Mushroom Hour Podcast we are beyond blessed to be joined by three members of Oakland’s own Hyphae Labs, Ian Bollinger, Tomás Garret and Reggie who has joined us on the podcast previously.
Inspired by early-life transformative experiences with psilocybin-containing mushrooms, Reggie has had a lifelong passion for mycology and now consults with the largest mushroom cultivators in the world. He is a also member of the Advisory Board for Decriminalize Nature and an avid activist for police reform and an ally of The Movement for Black Lives
Ian Bollinger is a dedicated researcher, scientist and host of the Understanding Entheogens Podcast. Advising for harm reduction through education by working with the entheogen decriminalization movement in the SF Bay Area; Ian dedicates his time to churches, non-profits, and public benefit corporations to bring scientific insights from the growing entheogen space to the public through his writings, podcast, and outreach
Tomás is the head of operations for Hyphae Labs. His background is in analytical chemistry that began with food and drug testing in Wisconsin. He moved to California in 2018 and began pesticide and solvent testing for the cannabis industry. Over the past few years he has become intertwined like mycelium with the vibrant Oakland psychedelic community.
Formed by citizen scientists like these, Hyphae Labs works to connect cultivators and consumers to knowledge, data, and education that supports their community through harm reduction. They are currently engaged with research around Tryptamine content in entheogenic organisms, providing lab and analytical support for the Psilocybin Cup. I am excited to learn more about their collective, their vision and the upcoming Oakland Psychedelic Conference.
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Today on the Mushroom Hour Podcast we have the distinct privilege of being joined by Dr. Andy Letcher. Dr. Letcher is a writer, performer and scholar of religion who began life as an ecologist, completing his D.Phil in Ecology at Oxford University. After a spell as an environmental activist during the 90s, especially during the anti-roads protests, he moved across to the humanities, completing a PhD at King Alfred’s College Winchester. He is an expert on contemporary alternative spiritualities, especially modern Paganism, neo-shamanism and psychedelic spiritualities. He is especially interested in the tangled and sometimes tortuous relationship between science and spirituality, and in so-called dark green religion. He has written papers on: the distribution of mammals across continents; fairies; mysticism; and psychedelic spirituality. Andy is also the author of the comprehensive work “Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom” that examines enthnomycological research, legends and myths surrounding humanity’s relationship with psychoactive fungi.
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Today on Mushroom Hour we are joined by internationally renowned herbalist Dr. Christopher Hobbs. Dr. Hobbs is a fourth-generation herbalist, licensed acupuncturist, herbal clinician, research scientist, consultant to the dietary supplement industry, expert witness, botanist and mycologist with over 35 years of experience. He is also a prolific writer and has authored or co-authored over 20 books, including the new “Christopher Hobbs’s Medicinal Mushrooms, the Essential Guide.” Christopher has lectured on herbal medicine world-wide. He earned his Ph.D. at UC Berkeley with research and publication in evolutionary biology, biogeography, phylogenetics, plant chemistry, and ethnobotany. Time to dive deep into medicinal mushrooms!
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