If you like mushrooms and live around the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois, this is your club.

We’re not exactly a club. Southern Illinois Mushroom Co-op members are local mushroom growers, wild mushroom foragers, organic farmers, professional mycologists, nature photographers, naturalists and anyone else who appreciates nature and

        mushrooms. We like to forage for mushrooms

        together occasionally. We also hunt alone. We utilize

        social media. We meet throughout southern Illinois

        once in a while whenever we want to meet as a

        group, but we have other lives.

        We pay no dues. Some of our members cultivate

        edible mushrooms for sale at local restaurants and

        markets. We never sell wild mushrooms. We share

        our mushroom knowledge on the Web and at

        gatherings and learn whatever we want to know,

        including undiscovered facts about nature and science.

Here’s what fascinates us: Mushrooms and other fungi in North America are still surprisingly undocumented by science. New species are waiting to be documented everywhere. Maybe in your backyard.

Here’s where ordinary people can help.

The mushrooms we find anywhere in nature

might be undocumented species. That’s

part of our mission. Sometimes we help

scientists discover new species by reporting

our finds.

And some of us just like to eat.

Beyond that, we simply are who we are.   

And every one of you is welcome to join us.