23 Jul Telluride Mushroom Fest: Director Britt Bunyard In General & About 2025 Event!
Telluride, Colorado is the epicenter for the largest wild mushroom festival happening in North America. Plans are now buttoned for the 45th annual Telluride Mushroom Festival or TMF, August 13 – August 17, 2025.
The Telluride Mushroom Festival (TMF) parade, which takes place on Saturday, August 16, 4 p.m., is open to the general public. The over-the-top spectacle is not to be missed.
The Telluride Mushroom Festival online schedule.
Go here for more on the history of the Telluride Mushroom Festival. (Back to 2009.)
Scroll down to listen to TIO’s chat with Dr. Britt Bunyard, director, TMF, since 2014.
Dr. Britt Bunyard, director, Telluride Mushroom Festival.
Fungi, as we know, come in a wondrous variety of shapes, sizes and colors, from tiny cup fungi to puffballs the size of basketballs. Fungi used to be classified as part of the plant kingdom, but became a kingdom of their own because they differ in biochemistry and structure from plants and cannot synthesize their own food.
Fungi serve many purposes–from breaking down plant cellulose in nature to creating nutrients for plants, to serving as food and medicine for people, to acting as bio-remediators to filter and break down toxic land from oil spills and agricultural run off. However, many are unaware of how versatile mushrooms are outside of the kitchen.
Since 1981, fungophiles of all sorts have come to our mining-camp-turned-resort-mecca to talk about identification, growing methods, medicinal uses, forest remediation, drug scapegoating, culinary recipes, biological theory, entheogenic practice, and the way of the psychonaut.
The Telluride Mushroom Festival is now entering its 45th year celebrating all things fungal. The mold- and spore-worshipping mycelium fanatics show up in town the week of August 11. TMF itself starts pre-fest activities on August 13, including forays and dinners.
TMF is, after all, a widely celebrated Mecca designed to celebrate and engage in the wondrous world of fungi. Here attendees get to connect with experts and learn on subjects ranging from foraging and wildcrafting to research and cultivation, biodiversity and conservation; psychedelic use and policy; environment and activism; cooking and music, etc.
The long list of esteemed speakers includes Paul Stamets, Gregory Mueller, Dennis McKenna, Eugenia Bone, Tradd Cotter, Guiliana Furci, Gabrielle Ceberville, William Padilla Brown, Louie Schwartzberg, Katrina Blair and Chad Hyatt.
But who is the Grand Poobah of the event? The Big Honcho? The Man with the Plan?
Dr. Britt Bunyard on the Clash Steps, Camden Town, London. Courtesy Britt.
Dr. Britt Bunyard has served as Executive Director of the Telluride Mushroom Festival since 2014 and was awarded the “Dr. Emanuele Salzman Award” for service to the Telluride Mushroom Festival in 2024. In 2021 he was awarded the Gary Lincoff Award “For Contributions to Amateur Mycology,” by the North American Mycological Association —NAMA’s most prestigious honor for American mycologists.
Britt is Founder, Publisher, and Editor-in-Chief of the mycology journal Fungi, in print since 2008. He is a former university professor who has published over 100 academic and popular science papers. Britt has served as an editor for mycological and entomological research journals, and mushroom guide books and is a popular evangelizer on all things fungal.
Britt has given more than 250 invited lectures to academic and popular audiences across North America and beyond and has been featured on the BBC World Service’s Newshour; NPR’s “All Things Considered”; PBS’s “NOVA
and Wisconsin Foodie television programs. He has also been interviewed or quoted in Discover magazine, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Vox, Vogue, Forbes, Saveur, Eating Well, Hobby Farm, Women’s World, and other magazines and newspapers.
Britt has collected fungi and lectured throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Annually, he leads mycological expeditions throughout the world, the stuff of legend in the mycological community.
Britt is the author several books, including “Fungi of the World: A Guide to All Phyla” (coming 2026; Princeton University Press); “Fungi Decoded” (2025; Penguin Random House); “The Little Book of Fungi” (2024; Princeton University Press); “The Lives of Fungi” (2022; Princeton University Press); “The Beginner’s Guide to Mushrooms” (2021; Quarry Books); “Amanitas of North America” (2020; The Fungi Press): and “Mushrooms and Macrofungi of Ohio and Midwestern States “(2012; The Ohio State University Press).
For more about his life and work, including highlights about TMF 2025, check out his podcast.
No Comments