Elusive little brown mushrooms scatter Ithaca’s forest floors, waiting to be discovered by the Fantastic Fungi Fanatics as the weather warms and mushroom-hunting season recommences.
FFF, Cornell’s mushroom club, hosts hikes through Ithaca’s woods in the fall and the spring, during which the mushroom enthusiasts forage for assorted fungi like morels, chicken-of-the-woods, poisonous destroying angels and jack-o’-lantern mushrooms. In the in-between months, FFF gathers to nibble on warm mushroom dishes sourced from Wegmans and grow their own mushrooms from spawn.
As a hub for fungi exploration, FFF encompasses students from all backgrounds — from plant science students to Cornellians who just think mushrooms look cool.
Clad in mushroom-themed garb, former club president Tommy Victor ’25 told The Sun that he appreciates the “fantasy”-like experience of mushroom-hunting, and enjoys sharing it with others.
“What originally got me into mushrooms was the scavenger hunt aspect of it,” Victor said. “Every time I went out [into the woods], it’d be a new adventure.”
When he hit campus as a first-year student in fall 2021, Victor searched for a mushroom community, but his hunt was fruitless. Though Cornell had a mushroom club in the past, it did not survive the COVID-19 pandemic, Victor said.
Determined to bring back the mushroom community and find people to hunt mushrooms with, Victor reignited the club.
Barely 10 people showed up for FFF’s first few meetings — most were friends of Victor’s and other executive board members. Now, the club has achieved record turnouts of 40-plus attendees hailing from all corners of campus.
Victor shared that celebrating fungi is important and often overlooked. Current co-presidents Jilud Trivisvavet ’26 and Sophia Caporusso ’26 echoed his sentiment and said that hosting a space for fungi appreciation is meaningful for the growing area of mycology.
“Fungi do so many roles in nature, but we often don't really think about it because most of a fungus's life cycle is completely underground,” Victor said.
Fungi hold a lot of potential for scientific discovery, Trivisvavet said, and he wants to encourage a greater understanding for the “incredibly necessary” major kingdom of life.
Currently, the red-capped mushroom with white polka dots — the fly amanita mushroom — pervades the media. Trivisvavet hopes to dismantle the limited fungi representation by exposing people to their many shapes and colors. His favorite mushroom — the chicken-of-the-woods — is bright orange.
The beech orange, Caporusso’s favorite fungus, is also bright orange. Caporusso’s goal is to make the field of fungal science “a little less niche and a whole lot more inclusive” by getting students involved through FFF.
Adding playfulness to campus as an unconventional club is also important for Caporusso. In addition to guest lecturers and mushroom identification lessons, she said that the executive board encourages camaraderie within the club and a genuine curiosity for the funky fungi kingdom.
“In such a serious academic environment, sometimes you need a little bit of silly,” Caporusso said.
As a niche group on campus, Trivisvavet hopes to foster a stronger community for the fungi enthusiasts. He noted the strength of the birding community and culture at Cornell, and said he wants to build the same hearth for fungi appreciation.
“I hope [FFF members] can at least feel a little bit of joy of being able to go out into nature, seeing something they recognize and feel proud that they can do that,” Trivisvavet said. “Even if it's just the level of, ‘Hey mom, look at that — I know what that thing is.’”
Varsha Bhargava is a news editor for the 143rd Editorial Board and a member of the Class of 2027 in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She can be reached at vbhargava@cornellsun.com.
