The Pringle Herbarium, part of the Natural History Museum at the University of Vermont (UVM), made a plan to partner with the Thematic Collections Network (TCN) called  “The Macrofungi Collection Consortium: Unlocking a Biodiversity Resource for Understanding Biotic Interactions, Nutrient Cycling and Human Affairs.” Macrofungi as defined by the MaCC are fungi that have a macroscopic sporocarp (that is a mushroom); they play key roles in plant and animal life and the global carbon cycle. The central goal of the Consortium (MaCC) is to serve digital and image data of herbarium collections and images through the iDigBio data portal, the Mycology Collections Portal MyCoPortal, and institutional websites.

The Pringle Herbarium’s mycological collections include a historically and regionally important record of macrofungal diversity in northern New England from ca. 1840 to the present, with significant representation from the period 1840-1910. Digitization of the Pringle Herbarium’s macrofungi collection adds an important geographical component to the Macrofungi Collection Consortium since no other herbarium in the consortium has a focus on the macrofungi of northern New England. Additionally, since the collections have a deep history, they provide an important historical enhancement to the MaCC database. The collections of Charles Frost, from the first decade of recorded systematic collecting in northern New England, provide a significant insight into mid-nineteenth century diversity. These collections provide an early basis for discovering changes in when mushrooms appear above ground with climate change. Fungal species of interest or concern for ecosystems and human welfare can also be identified and tracked with the aid of the newly available data.

Our goals were several: First, to assemble both digital data and images of selected Charles C. Frost collections and the Charles J. Sprague annotated drawings set, link these digitally to specimen data where possible. Second, to assemble digital data for all macrofungi collections in the Pringle Herbarium.  Third, to involve students in Dr. Delaney’s upper-level University of Vermont mycology course in improving the Pringle macrofungi collections by offering them the reward of having their own collections accessioned into the herbarium if they meet quality and correct-identification standards. And fourth, to engage the local community with mushroom identification workshops in the Pringle Herbarium, with the ultimate goal of renewed amateur interest in documentation of macrofungi with dried specimens and ancillary data to be added to the collection

We were completely successful in reaching our goals. 2627 macrofungi collections from the Pringle Herbarium were made available on the Macrofungi Collection Consortium (MACC) portal, at http://mycoportal.org/portal/collections/list.php. 47 critically important  specimens of macrofungi were photographed. Digitization of the Charles C. Frost collection was completed. In the process, the collection was stabilized with new packaging for all accessions in archival containers, but with the original, historically significant collection boxes retained. One hundred of Charles J. Sprague’s  annotated illustrations of macrofungi (all those in the Pringle Herbarium archives) were made available on the University of Vermont’s ScholarWorks @ UVM server, at http://scholarworks.uvm.edu/spraguefrost/index.html. When possible these early color illustrations of fungi were directly linked to fungal collections in the Pringle Herbarium. Finally, we put together georeferenced coordinates for almost all of the specimens.

Publication of data for 2627 macrofungi specimens and images for the 47 types available via the MACC portal makes the Pringle Herbarium collections available to the worldwide community of mycologists and mushroom enthusiasts.

Two Macrofungi workshops, titled “Celebrate the Pringle Herbarium: Vermont Macrofungi in the Pringle and in the Wild”, were offered to the northern Vermont community of macrofungi experts.  These workshops included both time in the field to observe and identify living mushrooms and time in the Pringle Herbarium to study the historical specimens and learn about the history of mycology in Vermont.

Undergraduate and graduate students and recent graduates of the University of Vermont were involved in an array of activities with the Pringle Herbarium’s macrofungi collections as they carried out grant-related tasks.  They received training as they participated in the curation, relocation, reorganization, and digitization of the Pringle Herbarium macrofungi collections. These students included both women and minority groups. We included the local community through workshops that shared our expertise with mushrooms in the wild at the same time that we familiarized people with the rich historical value of the Pringle Herbarium collections. 

Last Modified: 08/30/2016
Modified by: David S Barrington