Dover Library to host mushroom identification program

Paul Pernici of the Ohio Mushroom Society will present Mushrooms: Identification, Ecology and Uses at 6:30 p.m. June 23 at the Dover Public Library.

Pernici will discuss the basics of mushroom identification, the ecology of fungi and how it relates to identification, and some of the uses of various mushrooms. Pernici will talk about mushroom anatomy, how seasonality affects which mushrooms are likely to appear and the different kinds of lives mushrooms live.

At the end of the talk, he will use the techniques covered in the presentation to identify a few common fungi and talk about their edibility and uses.

Pernici is a software engineer by profession and, in his spare time, an avid amateur naturalist. He has been hiking through northern Ohio for 20 years but only developed a serious interest in plants and fungi over the last five. His main interests are the identification of wild plants and mushrooms and their ecology. He has been a member of the Ohio Mushroom Society since 2023 and a board volunteer for a year.

Dover Public Library is located at 525 N. Walnut St. To register, visit www.doverlibrary.org/events or call the library at 330-343-6123.