Current Education Classes
MST educational classes are held at the Toronto Botanical Gardens. They are open to MST members (and their family members living at the same address) and require registration in advance. There is usually a small fee for attendance. Occasionally MST classes will be open to the public.
Watch our event calendar or news page for class announcements and class dates. If you have questions about MST education classes, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Our current class offerings include:
12 Easy Genera: An Introduction to Field Identification of Mushrooms
This presentation provides an introduction to field identification for beginners. It is intended to help members get beyond the "picture matching" approach to using guidebooks and other resources, by paying attention to key macroscopic features when trying to identify the genus to which a mushroom specimen may belong. The focus is on 12 genera or groups of fungi with distinctive characteristics which make them relatively easy to identify in the field, including the following:
- Gilled mushrooms: Amanita, Cortinarius, Lactarius, Russula, Coprinoid mushrooms and Waxy Cap mushrooms
- Boletes: Boletus, Suillus and Leccinum
- Puffballs: Lycoperdon
- Bracket fungi: Ganoderma
- Morels: Morchella
Field Identification of Gilled Mushrooms: Looking Beyond the Obvious
This class is intended for members who have already attended the MST beginner class 12 Easy Genera: An Introduction to Field Identification of Mushrooms. In that program several genera or groups of gilled mushrooms are introduced that have obvious and distinctive features that make them relatively easy to recognize in the field. This program will focus on how observation of a few specific characteristics can form the basis of a systematic approach to the field identification of many other less easily recognized genera or groups of gilled mushrooms.