The Colorado Mycological Society is a 501-3C non-profit Organization founded in 1967 by Dr. Sam Mitchel, a Denver physician and amateur Mycologist. Their purposes are to advance the understanding and to stimulate the interest of the members by:
- Providing opportunities for students, holding conferences, facilitating cooperative research, arranging forays, and exchanging information among members.
- Collecting specimens of Colorado fungal flora for preservation in the Herbarium of Fungi of the Denver Botanic Gardens for identification and study.
- Interchanging specimens and information with other interested parties and organizations.
They currently have an active membership of 875 unique memberships (including family memberships), and over 14,000 people participating on their Facebook page.
Jon Sommer received a bachelor’s degree in Botany from Humboldt State University and two master’s degrees (Botany and Plant Pathology) from the University of California, Davis. He has studied mushroom identification with notable mycologists including Doctors David Largent, Orson Miller, Harry D. Thiers, and Daniel Stuntz. He has led mushroom forays, nature walks, and taught classes on mushroom identification across the United States for more than 45 years. As a resident of Colorado for over 29 years, Jon has in-depth knowledge of Colorado fungi as well as their diverse flora and the interactions of fungi in the environment. He has been a member of the Colorado Mycological society since 1993, is a past-president, and currently serves at its Membership Chair and President-Elect.
Ed Lubow has been hunting mushrooms since the 1970s, has been a member of CMS since the 1980s, and was president of CMS twice (1997, 2010). Ed has been volunteering in the Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi at Denver Botanic Gardens since 2008 and has taught the basic mushroom identification class for Denver Botanic Gardens since 2015.