A fungarium is a scientific collection of dried, preserved fungi. Many are housed in herbaria and use the same codes. Specimens serve as vouchers: physical evidence that others can re-examine. Canada’s largest is the Canadian National Mycological Herbarium, which reports over 350,000 fungal specimens used as vouchers for research and scientific names.
Fungaria hold the type specimens behind names. The holotype of Psilocybe azurescens is listed at the University of Washington herbarium, WTU (Species Fungorum). A 2024 study sequenced 71 fungarium specimens, 23 of them types, to rebuild the Psilocybe family tree, and found only 52 were true Psilocybe (Bradshaw et al., 2024).
Collections also preserve mistakes. A 2022 study barcoded specimens labelled Psilocybe and found their names largely unreliable, even at genus level (Bradshaw et al., 2022). A Quebec specimen record in the Université de Montréal fungarium notes that its database date and label date disagree (GBIF). A specimen’s label is a claim that can be checked; that is the point of keeping it.
Sources
- GBIF dataset: Canadian National Mycological Herbarium
- Bradshaw et al., 2024, PNAS
- Bradshaw et al., 2022, Applied and Environmental Microbiology
- Species Fungorum: Psilocybe azurescens record
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