Foray Announcement:
Rock Creek Cemetery
Sunday, October 30 - 10:00 AM
Foray Leaders: Dr. Natalie Howe & Tom McCoy
No registration necessary for this event.
In honor of the Halloween season, MAWDC is going to host a spooky lichen identification walk in historic Rock Creek Cemetery with lichenologist Dr. Natalie Howe and Tom McCoy. Lichens are composite organisms that love to grow on rocks ... e.g. tombstones, so you should stop in for a spell.
Lichens are best appreciated under magnification, so bring along your hand lens if you have one, but if you don't, no worries, we'll have many available for loan. Also, be aware that Rock Creek Cemetery is famous for its funerary arts, and we'll have a few pauses to appreciate their beauty as our leaders explain the history and symbolism of a few famous sculptures. We're taking a Halloween walk in a famous cemetery to learn about lichens and amazing art. What fun(gi) we're going to have!
We'll meet at the gate entrance near the intersection of Webster Street and Rock Creek Church Road. Finding parking can be challenging, but you may be able to locate a spot on Webster St., or by parallel parking along New Hampshire Ave.
Map to the location
See you soon,
Tom McCoy
PS: While I have you, I wanted to mention my friend Amy Wrobleski, a doctoral student at Penn State, is surveying mushroom club members as part of her dissertation work. Below is a short write-up from Amy and a link to her survey - I'd encourage you to respond so she can add some more data points to her study.
The project is looking at how people learn to hunt for mushrooms in the mid Atlantic region and how the way that people learn about mushroom hunting might have changed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, there has not been a lot of research on who hunts for mushrooms in the region and why. There are a lot of assumptions that government agencies and other folks have made, but no actual data on the community as a whole. I'm hoping that this study will fill some of those gaps and also help clubs and mushroom hunting organizations know more about the community at large.
The survey takes 10-20 minutes to complete either online, or a paper copy can be requested at the website below. Respondents will be sent a hand made mushroom art print as a "thank you" for participating.
Website: https://acw208.wixsite.com/mushroom-hunting-in
Survey: https://pennstate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bJGRZytiQRsT8ai
