The Pacific Northwest Key Council

By Michael W. Beug

At a time when there is increasing awareness of the importance of understanding global biodiversity, emphasis and funding for the biological sciences is shifting more and more away from organismal biology and towards biochemical research where industry and grant funding can offset decreasing revenues from public sources. Thus in both North America and Europe, Biology and Botany Departments are often losing their Natural History faculty as they retire and are replaced by bench scientists. At the same time, governments faced with decreasing tax revenues are trying to balance compelling needs, leading to drastic budget cuts in higher education. Often this means that as a vacancy comes open through retirement, the position is retracted and not filled. The cuts are beginning to result in closing or consolidation of departments that are not net revenue producers for the institution. When this happens, even tenured faculty are sometimes being let go. The problem is particularly acute in the field of mycology, given the scarcity of mycologists even before this trend started and the perception by budget managers of limited funding that mycologists tend to bring to their institutions. Thus I strongly feel that we need to look for models within the community of people who hunt mushrooms for food, pleasure and enlightenment. The mushrooming community has grown markedly in the last 40 years as mushroom clubs crop up around the country, as modern Field Guides have made mycology easier for the novice and as the modern digital era has made communication faster and easier. The Pacific Northwest Key Council is one model of how dedicated individuals interested in mushrooms can work with professional mycologists to further mycological knowledge.

The Pacific Northwest Key Council was formed in 1974 under the direction of Dr. Daniel E. Stuntz with Kit Scates as the events organizer, principal recruiter and first President (Figure 1). Kit and Dan were responding to the dearth of information that would allow amateurs to successfully identify mushrooms found in the Pacific Northwest. At the time there were few field guides and those mostly over-lapped each other in the coverage of a relatively small number of species found in the region. There were no keys readily accessible to amateurs.

The initial 15 members of what was to become the Pacific Northwest Key Council were drawn mostly from the Puget Sound Mycological Society in Seattle, Washington and the Oregon Mycological Society in Portland, Oregon. I dedicate this paper to the memory of Kit Scates Barnhart, Dr. Daniel Stuntz and other founding members of the Key Council.

It was Kit who brought me into the Key Council in 1975 and got me seriously involved in photographing mushrooms. Kit founded the North Idaho Mycological Association and was also a NAMA Vice President, Regional Trustee, and chair of the NAMA Education Committee. Thus it should be no surprise that she also introduced me to NAMA, and promptly got me on both the Education Committee and the Toxicology Committee. She soon was pushing me to produce educational programs for NAMA and the Key Council. My children knew her as their third grandmother. Kit wrote the first Key Council keys to Ramaria plus keys to Boletes and keys to several small genera including Gomphidius and Chroogomphus. She wrote a picture key to common genera of gilled mushrooms and a picture key to mushrooms terms that are great tools for beginning mushroomers. She served as the first Key Council President from 1976-78 with me as Vice-President. Together we spent several years working on a field guide for mushroom identification that we put on the shelf in 1979 when David Arora’s Mushrooms Demystified was published. Not long after that, Kit Scates traveled to Florida to marry Harley Barnhart. Kit Scates Barnhart and Harley Barnhart chose to reside at her riverside home in Idaho. With Harley, the Key Council gained another expert photographer and another great cook for our forays.

Fig 2. Helena Kirkwood with Christel Goetz, 1989

Fig 3. Don Goetz with Tom Priest, Portland, Oregon, 1975

My only formal instruction in mycology was from Dr. Daniel Stuntz. I attended a non-credit course of his in mushroom identification while a chemistry graduate student at the University of Washington. Dr Stuntz was a man of tremendous mycological knowledge, a revered faculty member, and totally dedicated to his students. As a result of Dr. Stuntz having been a graduate student during the Great Depression, starving botany students could always find food spread out for them in his lab. He assisted the Key Council with his gentle insights and an open door to his impressive mycological library. He also tutored us in fine wines and fine foods. I spent my first Sabbatical in his lab. Dr. Stuntz specialized in Inocybe and wrote our keys to Cortinarius, Hygrophorus (including Hygrocybe) and our original key to Polypores.

I also want to remember Don and Christel Goetz, who for decades were important contributors to both the Key Council and the Oregon Mycological Society (Figures 2 and 3). In addition to their joint mycological contributions, Don was the first Key Council Treasurer as well as our Attorney. He helped us draw up our early bylaws and articles of incorporation. He got our keys copyrighted as they were produced and wrote our first key to Amanita. Christel was our first Secretary and wrote our first key to Phaeocollybia. In addition to being very active in the Key Council, Leeds and Marie Bailey were pillars of the South Idaho Mycological Association (Figure 4). Leeds still survives, though is no longer active. They worked on desert species, producing a Key to the Woody Desert Fungi found in the Pacific Northwest. Marie also did a lot of work on Mycena. Ben Woo not only was important to NAMA but was founder of the Puget Sound Mycological Society (along with Dr. Daniel Stuntz and a later Washington State Governor, Dr. Dixie Lee Ray). Ben’s serious study of his specialty, Russula, was an inspiration and model for us all (Figure 5).

Fig 4. Marie Bailey, Kit Scates Barnhart, Dr. Joe Ammirati, and Leeds Bailey, 1989

Fig 5. Ben Woo with his Russulas, about 1990

Finally I want to acknowledge the still-active members of the Key Council with many years of service as well as key production. Two founding members remain active and have provided 36 years of service. They are the ever-energetic Margaret Dilly who wrote one of our keys to Agaricus and who, along with her husband Claude, is a driving force of the Northwest Mushroomers Association in Bellingham, Washington and Herold Treibs who wrote a key to the Helvellaceae (Figures 6, 7 and 8). Several additional members were at the first spring meeting of the Key Council and have now provided 35 years of service. These members include Coleman Leuthy who wrote the key to Lactarius and also worked on Hebeloma and Tricholoma; Eugene Butler who wrote keys to Lepista, Volvariella and Clitopilus; Judy Roger (currently on leave); and Michael Beug, who has recently redone Kit Scates Barnhart’s Key to Ramaria and works on Educational Programs (Figures 9, 10, 11 and 12). Members who have served for thirty years are Dick and Agnes Sieger, who worked on Melanophyllum, Lepiota allies and Maggie Rogers who serves as Style Checker and people photographer (Figures 13 and 14).

Fig 6. Claude and Margaret Dilly at Trout Lake Washington, 2009, photo by Michael Beug

Fig 7. Dorothy Henderson and Margaret Dilly, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 1974

Fig 8. Herold Treibs, Dick Sieger and Dr. Nancy Smith Weber

Fig 9. Coleman Leuthy

Fig 10. Gene Butler and Nettie Laycock

Fig 11. Paul Kroeger and Judy Roger

Fig 12. Dr. Michael Beug teaching use of Kit Scates Barnhart’s Picture Key

Fig 13. Dick and Agnes Sieger at Trout Lake, Washington, 2009, photo by Michael Beug

Figure 14. Maggie Rogers bugles the Key Council to order, 1989

Key Council Goals circa 1980 and Accomplishments by 2010

Now I want to look back on the goals that Kit Scates Barnhart outlined 30 years ago (McIlvainea 4(2): pp. 37-39, 1980) and reflect on the progress of the Key Council. What follows is an abbreviated enumeration of the goals as they were published in 1980 along with comments about where we are today:

1. Goal: To compile an accurate Master List of Pacific Northwest Fungi. Progress: This work has evolved into the creation of the Matchmaker CD by Dr. Ian Gibson. Matchmaker now contains not just a list but the descriptions of 2,092 taxa of gilled mushrooms and 1,904 taxa of non-gilled mushrooms that have been reported to occur in the Pacific Northwest. Many are accompanied by one or more images. Matchmaker currently is a powerful key for identification of gilled mushrooms and later in 2010 will also allow one to key out the non-gilled species as well. Matchmaker is available from Ian Gibson by email.
2. Goal: To prepare macroscopic keys by genus or in some cases larger groups of Pacific Northwest mushrooms and make those keys available at low cost. Progress: Currently there are 65 keys plus one Key to Keys that can be accessed free on the Internet. The keys can be accessed at http://www.svims.ca/council/index.htm or at http://www.svims.co/council/keys.htm.
3. Goal: To acquire accurate color photos of the PNW species. Progress: As of this writing, Matchmaker contains over 2,300 illustrations of at least 1,032 taxa of gilled mushrooms and 1,830 illustrations of 796 taxa of non-gilled mushrooms. Also as of this writing, 140 photographers have contributed their images to this project. Steve Trudell has just sent in a CD of 500 additional images and Michael Beug is working on digitizing selected slides from the collection of Harley Barnhart. Submissions continue from other photographers as well.
4. Goal: To promote and co-sponsor one regional foray a year with many educational opportunities provided there, and to offer our services at these forays which ideally would rotate around the Pacific Northwest under sponsorship of the various regional clubs. Progress: We have not co-sponsored forays, and the 1993 NAMA Foray sponsored by PSMS at Fort Worden was one of the last times we have attended a foray as an organization. We have been invited from time to time to attend and assist a regional club foray, most frequently the Spokane Mushroom Club Foray at Hill’s Resort, Priest Lake, Idaho.
5. Goal: To build up a group of advanced amateurs capable of making identifications for consideration by medical staff in suspected cases of poisoning. Progress: Key council members participate in the Toxicology group of the Oregon Mycological Society supervised by Key Council and NAMA member Jan Lindgren. A majority of the Key Council members also volunteer as NAMA volunteer identifiers and can be found listed on the NAMA website at http://namyco.org/toxicology/identifiers.html.
6. 

   Figure 15. Dr. Cathy Cripps with Boletus edulis,
   McCall, Idaho, 1990s, photo by Michael Beug

   Goal: To assist in identification at meetings, field trips, forays, and exhibits, and thus to take some of the pressure off professional mycologists. Progress: Key Council members regularly assist with activities in their local clubs, teach ID courses, serve as foray mycologists throughout the region and assist with mushroom shows and at forays. For example, Key Councilor Cathy Cripps was foray mycologist for the 2006 NAMA Annual Foray in Hinton, Alberta where the entire identification crew was from the Key Council. Cathy Cripps will again be foray mycologist for the 2010 NAMA Annual Foray near Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado (Figure 15).
7. Goal: To promote cooperation between amateur and professional mycologists. Progress: The majority of the professional mycologists in the region who are interested in taxonomy have joined the Key Council and/or work closely with Key Council members, resulting in several published and in-progress joint scientific papers as well as other products of cooperation.
8. Goal: To have each key councilor become the regional specialist in their genus of choice and cooperate in broader-based research concerning it. Progress: As noted in 7, members frequently undertake cooperative research in their genus and beyond, though we no longer require every member to specialize in one or more genera. We now recognize broader forms of service.
9. Goal: To produce slide-tape programs on our respective specialties for use as programs by PNW mushroom clubs. Progress: A few slide-tape programs were produced by Key Council members working in their specialty. More importantly, Kit, who was also chair of the NAMA Education Committee, involved Key Council members in the preparation of the first ever NAMA Educational Programs. At least four Key Council members produced slide-tape programs for NAMA. Kit got Michael Beug involved in mushroom photography and deeply involved in producing slide-tape programs. His focus has now shifted to PowerPoint programs, and over two dozen have been produced for NAMA in the past three years. The new NAMA programs rely heavily on the now digitized slides of Kit Scates Barnhart and Harley Barnhart. The program listing can be found at http://namyco.org/education/edprog.html.
10. Goal: To provide competent speakers (from willing members only and not necessarily gratis) on general or specialized mycological subjects for mushroom clubs, service organizations, etc. throughout the region, and to compile a list of other qualified speakers not members of this group. Progress: This project has been expanded to a nationwide scope and merged with earlier NAMA efforts by Allein Stanley. The newly revived NAMA Speaker’s Bureau contains contact information for many Key Council members and is found on the NAMA website at http://namyco.org/education/speakers_bureau.html. Many members also give talks, lead forays and teach educational workshops both in the Northwest and throughout North America outside of any speakers bureau connection.
11. Goal: To have each club within our region represented on the Key Council for better communication, distribution of keys, etc. Progress: While we initially recruited members just from Washington, Oregon and Idaho, we now also draw members from clubs in British Columbia, Alberta and western Montana. However, some small clubs do not have members interested in the level of activity required by Key Council membership. Distribution of keys is now via the Internet and is no longer the logistical challenge that it once was.
12. Goal: To promote cooperative fellowship among mushroom clubs of the region in order to solve common problems and encourage future progress. Progress: This goal is only indirectly accomplished by our members meeting twice a year and informally addressing issues within the clubs represented by our members.
13. Goal: To spearhead an effort to help American amateur mycologists catch up with their European counterparts. Progress: While we have served as an inspiration first for Gary Lincoff to attempt to form a similar group in the Northeast, later for the Colorado Mycological Society to discuss starting a group, and most recently by individuals in California talking of forming a similar organization, no similar group has emerged. North America still lags way behind Europe in terms of amateurs making meaningful contributions to mycology.

Fig 16. Drew Parker, Maggie Rogers and Katie Parker	Fig 17. Dr. Dan Durall with Sara Phelps Clark, Oluna Ceska, Dr. Jim Ginns, Dr. Ian Gibson, Dr. Fred Rhoades and Sally Tucker Jones

The Key Council remains a vibrant organization with 53 current members, though many have come and gone over the past 36 years. We meet twice a year. In the early years there was a spring working meeting at the University of Washington where Kit Scates Barnhart urged and inspired us to test keys day and night over the two days while Dr. Stuntz lovingly oversaw the gathering and provided both sage advice and fine wine. Then there was a fall foray where we were invited by a regional club to come and assist with identification and workshops. Our twice a year meetings now are spring and fall forays for members plus guests and students. The forays rotate around the region. At these forays we collect mushrooms that we can use to test and further develop our keys and we share insights and mycological knowledge. We have recently started keeping vouchers of all material collected at our forays in order to better document the fungi found in our region, though we are still working out the challenges this presents in recording and storage. Good food and fine wines remain a central part of our meetings, and our favorite caterer is our own Katie Parker (Figure 16). We rarely cook and eat any of the mushrooms, focusing instead on their study. Typically two speakers are invited, plus we try to invite at least one student, their way paid in return for a talk about their project (Figure 17). Increasingly we are seeking ways to encourage and support young individuals interested in mycology. For example, Brandon Matheny, now on the faculty at the University of Tennessee, was a student speaker who went on to become a Key Council member while he worked on his Ph.D. with our current science advisor, Dr. Joe Ammirati, at the University of Washington (Figure 18).

Fig 19. Dr. Joe Ammirati, Carl Hermanson, Kit Scates Barnhart, Dorothy Brown and Herold Treibs

Fig 20. Herold Treibs, Gene Butler, Dr. Nancy Smith Weber and Buck McAdoo. Photo from collection of Kit Scates Barnhart and Harley Barnhart

One indication of the Key Council’s impact on NAMA is the list of individuals who have won NAMA awards. While sadly, some members are no longer with us, Key Council members who have won the NAMA Award for Contributions to Amateur Mycology are Dorothy Brown (1973, (Figure 19), Kit Scates Barnhart (1976), Dr. Daniel Stuntz (1977), Donald and Christel Goetz (1984), Maggie Rogers (1990), Leeds and Marie Bailey (1991), Ben Woo (2002), Dr. Michael Beug (2006), and Dr. Nancy Smith Weber 2007 (Figure 20). Key Council members have also been awarded The Harry and Elsie Knighton Service Award. These individuals include Elsie Coulter (1990, Figure 21), Richard Bishop (2005, Figure 22), and Brian McNett (2008, Figure 23). Recipients of the NAMA President’s Outstanding Service Award include Steve Trudell (1989, Figure 24), Maggie Rogers (1990), and Ben Woo (2008).

The question now is whether or not this organization can finally start to broadly affect the way amateurs and mycologists work together in North America. Does the Key Council provide a model for amateurs and professionals to work together throughout North America? I hope so. Our members certainly stand ready to help others initiate similar endeavors.

Fig 22. Dick Bishop

Fig 23. Brian McNett at Olympia, WA

Fig 24. Dr. Steve Trudell

List of Illustrations

(From the collection of Kit Scates Barnhart and Harley Barnhart except as noted)

• Figure 1. Kit Scates Barnhart and Dr. Daniel Stuntz “waltzing,” 1974
• Figure 2. Helena Kirkwood with Christel Goetz, 1989
• Figure 3. Don Goetz with Tom Priest, Portland, Oregon, 1975
• Figure 4. Marie Bailey, Kit Scates Barnhart, Dr. Joe Ammirati, and Leeds Bailey, 1989
• Figure 5. Ben Woo with his Russulas, about 1990
• Figure 6. Claude and Margaret Dilly at Trout Lake Washington, 2009, photo by Michael Beug
• Figure 7. Dorothy Henderson and Margaret Dilly, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 1974
• Figure 8. Herold Treibs, Dick Sieger and Dr. Nancy Smith Weber, Spokane, Washington, 1988
• Figure 9. Coleman Leuthy, about 1985
• Figure 10. Gene Butler and Nettie Laycock, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 1990
• Figure 11. Paul Kroeger and Judy Roger, photo by Maggie Rogers
• Figure 12. Dr. Michael Beug teaching use of Kit Scates Barnhart’s Picture Key at Wallowa Lake, Oregon, photo by Maggie Rogers mid-80s?
• Figure 13. Dick and Agnes Sieger at Trout Lake, Washington, 2009, photo by Michael Beug
• Figure 14. Maggie Rogers bugles the Key Council to order, 1989
• Figure 15. Dr. Cathy Cripps with Boletus edulis, McCall, Idaho, 1990s, photo by Michael Beug
• Figure 16. Drew Parker, Maggie Rogers and Katie Parker at 2008 NAMA Annual Foray, McCall, Idaho, photo by Michael Beug
• Figure 17. Featured Speaker Dr. Dan Durall with Sara Phelps Clark, Oluna Ceska, Dr. Jim Ginns, Dr. Ian Gibson, Dr. Fred Rhoades and Sally Tucker Jones at the 2009 Key Council Foray at Silver Lake, B.C., photo by Michael Beug
• Figure 18. Dr. Brandon Matheny, Drew Parker and Kelly Chadwick photo by Maggie Rogers
• Figure 19. Dr. Joe Ammirati, Carl Hermanson, Kit Scates Barnhart, Dorothy Brown and Herold Treibs, 1987
• Figure 20. Herold Treibs, Gene Butler, Dr. Nancy Smith Weber and Buck McAdoo, Cispus, Washington, 1988
• Figure 21. Amanita study group. Laverne Chariton, Elsie Coulter, Jan Lindgren, Kit Scates Barnhart, Post Falls, Idaho, 1991
• Figure 22. Dick Bishop, photo by Maggie Rogers
• Figure 23. Brian McNett at Olympia, Washington, 1995, photo by Maggie Rogers
• Figure 24: Dr. Steve Trudell, photo by Agnes Sieger