This unit's mission is to obtain, describe, identify, and preserve specimens and cultures of selected wood-inhabiting fungi and to develop and improve systems for classifying such fungi.
Research is conducted on both domestic and tropical species.
Users of this research include Poison Control Centers who use our information to identify potential or actual poisonous mushrooms that might be consumed by the public. One of the recent contributions of this unit was a study conducted in cooperation with the National Park Service in which nearly 500 specimens and 100 cultures were produced in support of a biological diversity study of Alaskan national parks.