Magic Mushroom Weekend

Mushroom Display and Identification Table
11 a.m.–4 p.m.; Tulip Tree Allée

Stop by the specimen table and check out a wide diversity of mushrooms on display, collected by NYMS and provided by local cultivators Mushroom Queens. Learn some basics of mycology and mushroom identification with one of NYMS’s expert identifiers. Everyone with an interest in fungi, regardless of level of knowledge, is welcome!

Mushroom Drop-In and Draw
11:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m.; Library Lawn

NYC Nature Drawing Club is a free art club co-founded by Lindsay and Margot, two NYMS members and artists. It is a gathering of folks of all ages and abilities, all inspired by the natural world. Take part in a guided but open drawing session focused on a wide array of fungi collected by NYMS or provided by local cultivators. Drawing materials will be provided, but you are also welcome to bring your own.

Faces of Fungi! Face-Painting with Face Art by Melissa
11 a.m.–4 p.m.; Tulip Tree Allée

Get your face painted with a whimsical design in the spirit of Magic Mushroom Weekend. Highlighted by Time Out New York Kids as one of the six best party entertainers in NYC, Face Art by Melissa is New York City’s premier face painting company and an NYBG Mother’s Day favorite. Melissa and her team of amazing artists will transform your visit with mushrooms and other Wonderland characters…or paint up your own imaginative ideas.

Fungi for You with Hodgins Harvest
11 a.m.–4 p.m.; Tulip Tree Allée

Learn about the incredible culinary and medicinal properties that fungi can offer us from Aaron Hodgins Davis and his team at Hodgins Harvest.

Hodgins Harvest is a certified organic mushroom farm in Rockland County, NY, growing lion’s mane, cordyceps, turkey tail, and reishi for use in functional mushroom extracts and powders.

Caps for Caps! Costume Making Activity
11 a.m.–4 p.m.; Tulip Tree Allée

Get creative and make a mushroom-inspired hat to wear throughout the day with our friends from Materials for the Arts.

Mushroom Mini Lab with Journei Bimwala
11 a.m.–4 p.m.; Tulip Tree Allée

Join holistic health practitioner Journei Bimwala to learn more about the fungi life cycle, examine specimens on display, and hear more about the multifaceted properties of our fungi friends (and foes).

Melany Kahn is a second-generation mushroom hunter who learned how to forage from her parents, the late abstract painter Emily Mason and the late landscape painter Wolf Kahn. Since 2002 she has led school children, mushroom clubs, and nature center groups on woodland walks to gather and identify edible mushrooms. Melany teaches the culinary aspects of fungi through recipes, cooking demonstrations, and tastings.

Introduction to Mushrooms Workshop
2 p.m.; Children’s Adventure Garden Pop-Up

During our Magic Mushroom Weekend, learn from our Children’s Adventure Garden team and Mi Oh My Farms about the magnificent world of mushrooms and the ways they’re important to us. This program is designed for young children.

Register Here

Based in the Bronx, Mi Oh My Hydroponic Farms is a worker-owned hydroponic farm and educational organization with a mission to improve food access for the food insecure, while also providing opportunities for BIPOC communities to build generational wealth using Cooperative Economics and Just Transition principles, a vision-led, unifying and place-based set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power.

Eugenia Bone is a food and nature writer. Her work has appeared in many anthologies, magazines, and newspapers, including The New York Times, The National Lampoon, Saveur, Gourmet, BBC Science, and The Wall Street Journal, where she is a frequent book reviewer.

She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers and former president of the New York Mycological Society. She is also a member of the faculty at the New York Botanical Garden where she teaches classes on mycophagy and psychedelic mushrooms.

She is the author or co-author of nine books on food and biology, including the category staple Mycophilia, the Fantastic Fungi Community Cookbook and the forthcoming Have a Good Trip: Exploring the Magic Mushroom Experience (October 2024). She has won or been nominated for a variety of awards, including the Nautilus Award, the Colorado Book Award, and James Beard Award.

Eugenia has been featured on many dozens of radio shows and podcasts and has lectured widely in diverse venues like The New York Public Library, the Denver Botanical Garden, and the Rubin Museum. She is featured in the documentary directed by Louie Schwartzberg, Fantastic Fungi (2019), and in the Netflix children’s show about food, Waffles + Mochi, produced by Michele Obama’s Higher Ground Productions.

Photo: Susan Hornyak

Mini Foray with The New York Mycological Society
Offered at 11:30 a.m., 12:30, 1:30, and 2:30 p.m.
Registration required

Join an NYMS member and myco-expert on a guided walk throughout NYBG’s grounds to identify different fungi within the landscape. Participants receive a NYMS hand lens to take home. Everyone with an interest in fungi, regardless of level of knowledge, is welcome! This event is family-friendly and recommended for children over the age of 12. Tour size is limited to 25 people.

Meeting location and information will be provided upon confirmed registration via email.

Register:

Pre-registration for this event has now closed. Walk-up participation is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Comfortable shoes are recommended; Photos and close-up observation with hand lenses encouraged, but please no foraging. Walks will take place in the event of rain (bring an umbrella or raincoat).

Mini Incursión con La Sociedad Micológica de Nueva York
11:30 a.m. & 1:30 p.m.
Inscripción obligatoria, con prioridad por orden de llegad

Únanse a la caminatita guiada con un miembro experto de la sociedad micologica. La visita guiada sera por el Jardin Botanico, donde se identificarán diferentes fungi. Los participantes recibiran una lupa para llevar a sus casas. Todas las personas interesadas en fungi son bienvenidas. No es necesario tener conocimiento previo. Este evento es familiar y recomendado para niños mayores de 12 años. La caminata tiene un limite de 25 personas.

Se recomiendan zapatos comodos. Se sugiere sacar fotos y observar fungi con lupa pero favor de no recolectar fungi.

Inscribirse:

La preinscripción para este evento ya ha finalizado. La participación sin cita previa está disponible por orden de llegada.

Mysterious World of Fungi
Saturday Only; 11:30 a.m.
Walking Tour with NYBG Director of Plant Health

Registration Required and admittance is on a first-registered, first-served basis. 

Join the NYBG Director of Plant Health on a journey into the mysterious world of fungi. The guided walk will take visitors on a tour of the vast array of fungi that are found on NYBG grounds. Learn about how fungi function as plant pathogens, saprotrophic decomposers, and mycorrhizae. On our walk, we will learn how fungi function in our world and how they shape the ecosystem around us. 

This event is family-friendly and recommended for children over the age of 12. Tour size is limited to 25 people. Comfortable shoes are recommended; no foraging permitted. Walks will take place in the event of rain (bring an umbrella or raincoat).

Register:

Pre-registration for this event has now closed. Walk-up participation is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Deep Imagination Walk with Gabriela D’Elia
Saturday, September 14 only; 3 p.m.
Registration Required

During this walk, we spend time with soul-based teachings of fungi. Who are fungi? What does it mean to digest, sporulate, germinate, decompose, and translocate nutrients? Fungi are the archetypal inhabitants of realms above and below; seen and unseen. Fungi invite us to question how the quality of our embodiment reflects these dual worlds. This walk invites you to take reverence in surroundings both internal and external and commune with fungi on a heart level. This is not a chemically enhanced experience.

Register:

Pre-registration for this event has now closed. Walk-up participation is available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Mushroom Jams by La Morada Yucayeques
11 a.m.–4 p.m.
Tulip Tree Allée

Sample and purchase delicious mushroom jams by Sara Ruiz, owner of La Morada Yucayeques. Sarah Ruiz is an indigenous Puerto Rican future farmsteader, teacher, and cook who incorporates mushrooms into her preserves and desserts.