Subject: Single Mycology Topic is Good

From: [email-masked] (Jim Berlstein)
Date: 30 Oct 1995 16:03:20 GMT

Greetings,
     Splitting up this topic would be bad because:

1) it's not all that busy, often quite sluggish even.

2) What field guides do you use? (Like I didn't know). I don't see any 
PHD letters after David Arora's name, yet I have seen many a PHD defer to 
his superior knowledge of mushroom identification at a conference.  Just 
because someone has a PHD it does not mean they are more knowledgable 
about mushrooms.  

3) Interaction betweens the fanatics who roam the woods with a backpack 
and a camera, and scientists, who often spent a lot of time in little 
white rooms with sterile environments, are very important.  The fanatics, 
like myself, can often provide samples of uncommon mushrooms to the 
scientists. This sort of interaction advances the science and the hobby 
of mushroom picking. ( For me, it is neither.  Hunting mushrooms is 
either an addiction or a compulsion, I'm not sure)

-
  JIM BERLSTEIN, B.F.D.-    [email-masked]