California Mushrooms

Dennis E. Desjardin teaches biology at San Francisco State University. He received a master’s degree from San Francisco State University and a PhD from the University of Tennessee. Desjardin is a fellow of the Mycological Society of America, and a winner of the Alexopoulos Prize for outstanding research, the William H. Weston Award for teaching excellence, and a fellowship with the California Academy of Sciences. He has published over 140 scientific papers on the taxonomy and evolution of mushroom-forming fungi.

Michael G. Wood, a California native, is a computer consultant by profession and a mycologist and photographer by obsession. He is a past president of the Mycological Society of San Francisco (MSSF) and chair of its systematics committee; the publisher and webmaster for MykoWeb (mykoweb.com); and the former webmaster for the MSSF and the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) websites. Wood has been an avid mushroom collector, photographer, and taxonomist for over 30 years. His mushroom photographs have been published in many scientific journals, books, magazines, newspapers, and websites. He has led numerous workshops and countless forays for the MSSF and others, and is currently collaborating on a second book, Mushrooms of the Great Smoky Mountains.

Frederick A. Stevens has a doctorate in botany from UCLA. He has photographed and studied the macrofungi of the San Francisco Bay Area for more than two decades, with a special interest in gasteromycetes and the genus Agaricus. Stevens is the coauthor, with Michael G. Wood, of The Fungi of California (californiafungi.com), and a past president of the Mycological Society of San Francisco. He has led numerous mushroom walks and consults with physicians and veterinarians on mushroom poisonings.