British Columbia Ectomycorrhizal Research Network
About MMPNW- Matchmaker for Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest
Matchmaker for Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest (version 1.3) is an aid to identifying mushrooms with over 2000 gilled mushrooms of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and British Columbia included in the database. The original Windows version of the MMPNW program, developed by Ian and Eli Gibson, included gilled mushroom descriptions and photos of gilled and non-gilled mushrooms, as well as a search tool for matching mushroom characteristics.
The web version of Matchmaker for Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest (MMPNW) was created in 2001 by Alan Thomson, Wendy Alexander, Norman Sim and Tony Trofymow of the Canadian Forest Service with suggestions from Ian and Eli Gibson, the authors of the original and revised versions of the MMPNW program. Copyright for the .jpg illustrations in this site belong to photographers noted with each illustration.
© Canadian Forest Service, Ian and Eli Gibson
The web version, last updated in 2008 to the Windows MMPNW version 1.3, was removed from the BCERN web site in 2023 because of legacy software issues. Although the web version of online search tool has been discontinued, the EDD catalogue and links from it to the MMPNW database remain functional.
Gibson has continued to enhance the Windows version now called MycoMatch (MatchMaker- MMPNW) version 2.4 which in 2020 included over 4200 descriptions and 6100 illustrations of gilled and non-gilled mushrooms. The current Windows version of the non-profit program can be downloaded or is available on a CD-ROM for a nominal fee from the MycoMatch web site.
Contributors
MMPNW is a non-profit project with the support of the Pacific Northwest Key Council. Over 50 photographers have contributed, including Key Council members and the photographers of MykoWeb.
Funding
Funding for the initial web version of MMPNW had been provided by the Biodiversity Network of the Canadian Forest Service and by the BC Forest Research Extension partnership (FORREX).
Funding for updates to the web version of MMPNW in 2008 came from the BC Forest Investment Account: Forest Science Program (FIA-FSP) and the Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada.