It's that time again! Thanks to all who entered the 2027 Santa Cruz Fungus Fair logo design contest. The Grand Prize is $500 plus other perks!

I went to Yuba County to hunt for Earth Stars. Although they are curled up and dry during the summer months, they aren’t too hard to find once you find a few older stray ones. The grass isn’t tall and it’s dry as well.

Each spring, the retreat of the snowpack provides a unique ecological window of opportunity for “snowbank fungi”, a group of mushrooms that (as the name suggests) grow in and around snowbanks. As spring gives way to summer, curious mycophiles from around the world gather at a rustic campus in Tahoe National Forest to study these fascinating fungi.