Condobolin and District Landcare hosted a Mycology Matters workshop at the SRA Conference Room on Wednesday, 15 May.

The workshop, run by Ecologist Alison Pouliot, introduced participants to the diversity of the Kingdom Fungi and the basic principles of fungus identification, including fungi from the various local habitat types and those from further afield.

In addition to their ecological significance, participants also discussed various cultural aspects of fungi such as edibility and toxicity and their use in land restoration.

“Alison Pouliot, BA (Philosophy), BSc Hons (Zoology), PhD (Ecology/Mycology) is an ecologist, environmental photographer and author and has presented over 850 environmental seminars, forays, and workshops in Australia and internationally,” a post on the Condobolin and District Landcare Facebook Page read.

“Alison greatly enjoys working with people from all walks of life to tap into their passions and ideas about the environment and environmental issues, with a focus on fungi.

“Relative to plants and animals, the diversity and significance of fungi is little known. Yet fungi are vital in creating and stabilising soils, nourishing, and interconnecting plants, recycling nutrients, retaining and filtering water, restoring environmental damage and essentially underpinning ecosystem health and resilience.”

Alison’s books, The Allure of Fungi, Wild Mushrooming and Underground Lovers were also on display at the workshop.

Those who are interested in finding out more, can visit Alison’s website (www.alisonpouliot) for more information.

Following an interactive indoor session around the specimen table, those in attendance then headed to a local field site to search for fungi of interest.

This event was made possible thanks to the shared work of NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust and Landcare NSW under the Private Land Conservation Matters Project.