Psilocybe cubensis, the hallucinogenic cow patty mushroom, Penicillium chrysogenum, source of penicillin, Aspergillus fumigatus, cause of Aspergillosis.

Three web pages by students in my Organismal Biology class at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Tom Volk's Fungus of the Month for June 2008

by Andrew Anderson, Stephanie Kitzmann, Melody Miller, and Tom Volk.

Please click TomVolkFungi.net for the rest of Tom Volk's pages on fungi

Psilocybe cubensis

Penicillium chrysogenum

Aspergillus fumigatus.  photo by Craig Dunek This month's fungus is actually THREE fungi! I've been making Fungus of the Month pages for more than eleven years now, and I thought it was time to spread the fun around. I taught Organismal Biology here at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse for the second time this spring semester, and I thought it would be a good idea for each student to make a web page about an organism. As you can see from the results at MultipleOrganisms.net, the students were very successful at making their own web pages. Although many of the web pages dealt with the "charismatic megafauna," three of my students chose to do their web pages on fungi. So I decided to feature those web pages here.

Some of the pages were repeats of fungi that I had already done for the fungus of the month, but I think you will agree that they are vastly different from my pages. The students got extra points for creativity and cleverness, and that clearly shows in each of these pages.

It is my intention to give this web page assignment every year, with no repeats of species that previous students have already done. If you are a teacher interested in the specifics of the assignment, please write to me and I can give you the details.

So here are the web pages! Let me know what you think!


I hope you enjoyed learning about these four fungi. I hope you get a chance to read some of my other students'pages at MultipleOrganisms.net. Let me know how you like them!


If you have anything to add, or if you have corrections, comments, or recommendations for future FotM's (or maybe you'd like to be co-author of a FotM?), please write to me at my email address

This page and other pages are © Copyright 2008 by Thomas J. Volk, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Learn more about fungi! Go to Tom Volk's Fungi Home Page --TomVolkFungi.net

Return to Tom Volk's Fungus of the month pages listing