Big Picture: Mushroom Mosaic

Plant and Microbial Biology graduate student Alienor Baskevitch arranged and photographed these fantastic fungi during a field excursion she led last fall as a graduate student instructor of the Biology of Fungi course. Baskevitch’s ongoing interest in mushrooms was sparked as an undergraduate at Berkeley when she took a similar mushroom course taught by professor emeritus Tom Bruns. The annual trip to Mendocino is a long tradition in the beloved mycology courses and offers students the opportunity to find species they wouldn't have encountered on or near campus. “Foraging for mushrooms requires you to pay deep attention to the world in a way I find enriching and grounding,” Basekvitch said. “It was gratifying to be able to help catalyze that same interest for my students as well.”