MST Field Species Checklist
The MST's Field Species Checklist is the main tool used at our forays to keep track of which species have been identified that day. Originally developed in 1998 and revised in 2007, the checklist has been newly revised in 2021 by MST Education Chair Pat Burchell and former Secretary and Editor Tony Wright, in order to bring it up to date with current taxonomy.
A note on spring species in the 2021 checklist
Of particular interest for the spring mushroom season are the changes for morels. We have known for a long time that North American species of morels are not identical to their European counterparts, but continued to use the European names for want of any clear alternatives. A number of NA species have now been described, but the difficulty is in knowing which of a number of different species we actually have here. We decided to list the only 3 species described in Baroni’s book; i.e. one species of yellow morel, one species of black morel and the NA half-free morel.
- Morchella americana (M. esculenta Eur. sp.) – a yellow morel
- Morchella angusticeps (M. elata Eur. sp.) – a black morel
- Morchella punctipes (M. semilibera Eur. sp.) – half-free morel
Most species formerly in the genus Coprinus, are now found in one of the following genera: Coprinopsis, Coprinellus or Parasola. Species formerly in the genus Xerula are now in the genus Hymenopellis. Tricholomopsis platyphylla is now Megacollybia rhodmanii.
Wherever the species name on the checklist has changed, the name formerly used has been provided in brackets; e.g. Dacrymyces chrysospermus (D. palmatus), the orange jelly fungus.
Field species checklist © Mycological Society of Toronto. All rights reserved.