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.
Welcome to AmericanMushrooms.com. This Web site affords me a great opportunity to share with the general public the marvels and delights of wild mushrooms, which are often referred to as "the higher fungi." It serves as a forum where I can display the results of my many years of studying and photographing these remarkable organisms. And it affords me an opportunity to play an increasingly active role as a promoter, a "champion," of what some might thoughtlessly call "toadstools."
Take a look around, see what might inspire you, see what you might learn. I especially recommend you check out…
I am always glad to get E-mails from folks who have visited my Website. If you have a mushroom you need help identifying, send me a good digital image and I'll gladly take a look (my E-mail address is david@americanmushrooms.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.
Meanwhile, enjoy!
--David Fischer
Several 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! Dr. Tim Baroni is my number one mycological mentor; thanks, Tim! 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. Bob Schilkie has been a great friend and mushroom-hunting companion, and his shadow has made some of my best photographs what they are. ;-) Thank you all! Love, David
DAVID W. FISCHER is my name, and I am best known as the coauthor of two major books on mushrooms (mycology): Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America: A Field-to-kitchen Guide (1992, Univ. of Texas Press) and 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 advise the Susquehanna Valley Mycological Society (SVMS) and the Central New York Mycological Society (CNYMS). 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, morphology, taxonomy and systematics of select families and genera of ectomycorrhizal mushrooms, e.g. Lactarius, Amanita, and the cantharelloid, clavarioid and hydnoid fungi.
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 the E-mail address shown near the bottom of this page.
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've also fabricated sheet metal, managed a store, worked as ward clerk in a busy Syracuse emergency room, and whatever other day job was necessary to make ends meet. At various times I have also played keyboards and sang with a number of local jazz, rock, country and blues bands in the Syracuse and Binghamton NY areas, but I'm presently enjoying a hiatus from that. I live in Syracuse, New York and spend most of my mushroom-hunting time in Onondaga, Oswego, Oneida, Chenango and Cortland counties.
In May 2008, this site's busiest month ever, 29,494 "unique visitors" pointed their browsers at AmericanMushrooms.com for a total of 36,344 visits, viewing an average of 3.71 pages per visit for a total of 134,933 page views*. I'd like to thank you all for visiting AmericanMushrooms.com!
* -- Total number of 'hits': 1,541,672. ('Hits' is a count of total files served, including misc. graphics… a figure that really shouldn't mean anything to anyone, but since everyone else likes to brag using that stat, I'm posting mine for useless comparison purposes). ;-)
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To contact David Fischer, send an e-mail to…
All content at americanmushrooms.com is Copyright © 2006, 2007 by David W. Fischer. All rights reserved.