Fungal Network of New Zealand

Clive Shirley of the Hidden forest website has recently published a series of PDF eBooks as a photo guide to New Zealand fungi.

Book 1 can be downloaded for free, the others are available for just $40 for the set.

Dear FUNNZ members

I am writing to advise that the FUNNZ Committee decided last week to postpone the in-person Rotorua Fungal Foray until next year. This was a difficult decision but was arrived at because of the dual issues of managing the foray under the current covid restrictions, in particular the issue of running the foray effectively if people become symptomatic during the foray, as well as wanting to ensure that the institutions supporting the foray organisers are satisfied with the level of iwi and community engagement that has taken place.

The FUNNZ committee will meet in early April to assess whether it is feasible to hold a foray in 2022 under pandemic conditions. Institutional guidelines impacting key individuals need to be followed, as well as government guidance. If the Rotorua foray is postponed to 2023, the committee will look to support a shorter, virtual event, encouraging participants to explore their local terrain. Keep well, and we will endeavour to post information about the foray by Tuesday April 12th.

The 2022 fungal foray will be held at the Dutch Hall in Rotorua from May 16th – May 20th , with the colloquium day being at Scion.

Registration will open March 2022.

MYCELIAL FUNGI by Sue Edmonds

We look to space for other worlds
Know little of the maze beneath our feet
Where grow mycelial labyrinths
Connected and coordinated dwellers.

Their swarms of hyphal tips move endlessly
Through spaces in our soils as tubes of threads
Transport networks of rivers of cellular fluids
Finding chemicals, receiving carbohydrates.

A symbiotic mesh with plants which grow above
Where animals put food in their own bodies
Fungi put their bodies into foods
Shapeshifters moving through our soils.

This story on the 2021 fungal foray was written by Bill Morris and photographed by Lottie Hedley: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/the-underground-forest/

Several members of the 2021 stewart island fungal foray to stewart island were interviewd for the TV show 'Seven Sharp'. You can watch this here: https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/seven-sharp/clips/out-and-about-with-the-fu...

The rare and endangered Macrocystidia reducta (Fishy Pouch Fungus) smells a bit like rotten fish and looks like a pouch. It is only found on Banks Peninsula in native podocarp forest, listen below for the audio clip, and for more information check out these links:

FUNNZ member Anna Chinn (Journalist and mushroom romantic) has published an article on Aotearoa/New Zealand luminescent fungi. Check it out here: https://www.darksky.org/a-fungal-fairy-land-revisited/

Limited places are still available for the foray on Stewart Island, taking place between April 11th – 17th 2021. Key details are: