Archives: Events

Have you been keeping an eye on a mushroom sweatshirt or that tulip tumbler for that gardener in your life? (Or perhaps yourself?) Join us on our open Saturday, November 18 for a day of deals at the Lloyd Library Gift Shop. To kick off the holiday season, every visitor receives 10% off of their entire purchase. Lloyd Library Members will receive 20% off and an additional 10% off for anyone who makes a $25 or more donation when checking out on-site.

 

Flora Mania celebrates the rich history of botanical illustration through the lens of the Lloyd’s robust collection. The exhibition will present and interrogate centuries of scientific and artistic responses to the world of flowers, with particular attention to environmental sustainability, the legacy of colonialism, and the artistic impulse to capture their beauty. Opening December 8, Flora Mania aims to brighten the winter, stimulate curiosity, and inspire dreams of spring gardens.

Free and open to the publlic. Light refreshments.

Join us to learn about psychedelic mushrooms and especially psilocybin, a naturally occurring compound produced by some fungi around the world. We will discuss the biology behind how psilocybin interacts with the human brain, and then venture into history to understand how psychedelic mushrooms have been used ceremonially and medically through the centuries. Psilocybin is rapidly gaining attention today for its potential to treat mental health issues such as depression, but it is also a tightly regulated substance. We will explore the current state of research and regulation of psilocybin and what the future may hold for this compound and the fascinating fungi that produce it. 

Watch the recording on YouTube.

Theresa Culley is a plant biologist at the University of Cincinnati where she teaches a popular undergraduate course on Medical Botany. While an expert on both invasive plants and rare endangered plants, Theresa is also mesmerized by the relatively understudied world of fungi and the immense role they have in our society today.

The program shows the diversity of macro fungi colors and forms. Distinctive edible, deadly and other toxic species will be covered. Hallucinogenic, bioluminescent, medicinal, and insectivorous species will be shown. Saprobic, parasitic, and symbiotic species will be discussed. Participants may bring mushrooms for identification.

Registration Required.

Walt Sturgeon is a field mycologist with over 40 years of experience studying and identifying mushrooms. His photos of mushroom and fungi, some award-winning, can be seen in numerous mushroom field guide publications, three of which he co-authored: Waxcap Mushrooms of Eastern North America, University of Syracuse Press, 2012; Mushrooms and Macrofungi of Ohio and the Midwestern States, Ohio State University, 2013., and Mushrooms of the Northeast, Adventure-Keen Press. He has also written Appalachian Mushrooms, Ohio University Press, 2018, He was a Contributing Author to the Encyclopedia of Appalachia, University of Tennessee Press.

Join us for a screening of Fantastic Fungi: The Magic Beneath Us, a film by Louie Schwartzberg and narrated by Brie Larson.

Registration Required.

Nature has a long track record of being a source of compounds that led to FDA-approved drugs. Fungi, in particular, may have had one of the biggest impacts on survival rates in the 20^th century due to the discovery of penicillin and the antibiotics revolution that it stimulated. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find anyone in the world who has not been treated with an antibiotic at least once in their lifetimes. However, much of the work that led to modern antibiotics was carried out in the 1950s through 1980s. Have you ever wondered how someone goes about ‘discovering’ a drug lead from fungi in 2023? This talk will go into details about how fungi, collected from the environment, are used as a source for drug leads, particularly for the sake of anticancer drug discovery, by telling you how this is carried out in a project that is currently funded by the National Cancer Institute. 

Watch the recording on YouTube.

Dr. Nicholas Oberlies is an internationally recognized expert in the chemistry of nature and medicines from natural products. Leads a team of scientists focused on the discovery of new drug leads. Skilled in the discovery, biological evaluation, structure elucidation, and optimization of natural product drug leads.

Consulted on the analysis of natural products (e.g., setting up drug discovery pipelines and determining safety of herbal remedies) for clients ranging from Fortune 500 corporations (e.g. Procter & Gamble) to biotechs. Served as a qualified expert witness. Trained chemistry students in communication skills and public speaking. Developed workshops on Scientific Entrepreneurship. Served on Scientific Advisory Boards for Mycosynthetix, Ionic Pharmaceuticals, Clue Genetics and several Journals (e.g., J. Antibiotics, Phytochemistry, Planta Medica). Over 100 invited scientific presentations, both nationally and internationally. Published >220 manuscripts.

Hunting for mushrooms is, almost by definition, a local undertaking. Forested paths, the undersides of fallen trees, and neighboring yards all make for good collecting sites. But toward the end of the 19th century, mycology became an increasingly international undertaking as global collectors attempted to gather and chart the worldwide distribution of fungal species. Curtis Gates Lloyd played a vital part in this project through a mixture of travel, specimen solicitation, and publication. This presentation explores how Lloyd and many others developed extended webs of correspondence that set the foundations for contemporary fungal science.

Registration Required.

Brad Bolman is a Postdoctoral Member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. His first book, The Dog Years: A History of Beagle Science, published by the University of Chicago Press, is due out next year. Brad is currently working on a second book which explores the international history of mycology and fungal science.

Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of fungi which means they aren’t plants and yet we often cook them the same way as we do vegetables. That’s a shame, because mushrooms are an altogether different food, with their own caveats and pleasures. In this presentation, Eugenia will show how the biology of mushrooms can guide your approach to them in the kitchen. She will discuss how to select mushrooms, how to clean them and how to store and preserve them, and the basic principles of cooking mushrooms. She will describe the range of mushroom flavors and textures, the difference between wild and cultivated species, dried and fresh, and what foods marry well with them. Folding mushrooms into your diet makes sense on many levels, and Eugenia will explain why. She will also share some simple recipes. 

Watch the recording on YouTube.

Eugenia Bone is an internationally known food and science writer whose works have appeared in anthologies, magazines, and newspapers, including The New York Times, The National Lampoon, Saveur, Gourmet, BBC Science, and The Wall Street Journal. An author of eight books, her latest, The Fantastic Fungi Community Cookbook (2021), features 100 recipes from over 50 mushroom-philes. Bone appeared in the hit documentary Fantastic Fungi and an episode of Netflix’s Waffles + Mochi. She is also a member of the American Society of Science Writers, a past president of the New York Mycological Society, and is the founder of Slow Food Western Slope in Colorado. Currently, Bone is a faculty member of the New York Botanical Garden where she teaches classes on mycophagy and psychedelic mushrooms

 

 

Mycologist Nicholas Money provides a guided tour of a marvelous unseen realm, describing how our immune systems are engaged in continuous conversation with the teeming mycobiome inside the body, and how we can fall prey to serious and even life-threatening infections when this peaceful coexistence is disturbed. He also sheds light our complicated relationship with fungi outside the body, from wild mushrooms and cultivated molds that have been staples of the human diet for millennia to the controversial experimentation with magic mushrooms in the treatment of depression.

Watch the recording on YouTube.

 

Nicholas Money is an Anglo-American biologist, author, and Western Program Director and Professor of Biology at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He is an expert on fungal biology and has authored a dozen popular science books that celebrate the microbial world. His website is www.themycologist.com.

Join us for the opening of A Foray into Fungi, showcasing the wonders of the kingdom of fungi through a rich collection of rare books, photography, dried specimens, and multimedia representations. Beginning in the 16^th century, the exhibition traces the development of disciplines as diverse as mycology, ethnobotany, and natural history. Highlights include the first published image of the famous agaric mushroom that inspired Alice in Wonderland, and an 1827 French publication with illustrations full of rich, color-saturated, almost psychedelic mushrooms. Works by avid mycologist and Lloyd Library co-founder Curtis Gates Lloyd join those of Mazatec shaman María Sabina and others in this multifaceted journey.

Free and open to the public. Light refreshments.