As statewide funding for disease surveillance runs out this year, here’s what to look out for—and how to be a friend to your local snakes.
Snake Fungal Disease Is Spreading in California. What Can We Do?
April 4, 2024 •
Fungi
All about mushrooms.
California’s New State Mushroom Is One Heck of a Fungus
February 8, 2024 •
After votes from California mushroom enthusiasts, the bling under the live oaks emerged as the winner.
Sex and Poison May Explain California Death Cap Invasion
February 1, 2024 •
Local mycologists suspect death caps—huge and abundant in the Bay Area—may be competing with chanterelles underground.
The Amanitas Are Blooming. Don’t Eat Them.
January 4, 2024 •
Death caps and Western destroying angels, both common in the Bay Area, thrive after rainfall, the East Bay park district warns.
Winter 2024 Almanac: Manroots, Skinks, and Avocets
December 20, 2023 •
You didn’t imagine it. That was a tiny blue tail you saw wriggling through the damp leaves and brush. Illustrations by Jane Kim.
Bay Nature’s Hall of Botanical Horrors
October 26, 2023 •
For those who dare—meet the Bay Area’s spookiest plants (and two freaky fungi).
A Better Way to Forage Matsutake Mushrooms
October 12, 2023 •
“Xayviish has far more personality than any grocery-store mushroom,” writes Sara Calvosa Olson, a Karuk tribal member. “It’s a meaty but delicate time machine, whisking your spirit back to your gathering place.”
How the DNA We Leave Behind Can Help Conservation
May 3, 2023 •
Bits of DNA linger on the forest floor, in the ocean, and even in the air—and these strands have stories to tell, back at the lab. Here’s how environmental DNA (aka ‘eDNA’) is starting to transform how ecologists work in the Bay Area and beyond.
The Giant Cypress Agaricus: A Chonk of a Mushroom with a Strong Sense of Place
March 23, 2023 •
This formidable fungus has been traveling up and down the California coast as a Monterey-cypress groupie. But how does it follow its favorite tree?
Meet the Latticed Stinkhorn, A Fragrant Fungus Beloved of Flies
January 25, 2023 •
Clathrus ruber looks more like an errant pickleball than a traditional toadstool, and it is born from an egg, which some people say tastes like radish. It’s a flashy European transplant now at home in California, worth learning on your next winter fungus foray.