Lindsay Best

Primary researcher, Lindsay Best, grew up dividing her time between the Southern California beach town of Encinitas and the wide open spaces of the Northern California town of Placerville. She spent many afternoons exploring the old wagon trails and fire roads on the back of her horse in the north, and hiking the estuaries and beaches in the south. From this upbringing she learned a great love and joy for all the ecological diversity that California has to offer.

Lindsay’s studies have focused on California native plants, horticulture, permaculture, and the wildly ephemeral fungi of our state. She enjoys hunting for rare plants, gardening, and collecting fungi for further study.

Lindsay is the coordinator for a project that works with a local high school biology teacher to create a new DNA sequencing program with local highschool students. Lindsay guides students through field work, teaching them responsible collection and vouchering of local fungi. The program emphasizes lab work and uses GenBank and iNaturalist to create a permanent, public data stream of DNA sequences.

Lindsay is a passionate field mycologist, with a robust professional network of mycologist experts throughout California's Central Coast. She has assisted in the development of a professional research paper, identifying a new species of Cortinariaceae within xeric habitats of California within an unpublished paper titled "New species of Cortinariaceae from xeric habitats in California and adjacent states". For the past five years, she has conducted personal voucher specimens and assisted on numerous fungal surveys, including a FUNDIS survey. Her research fascination is rooted in the fungi of coastal oak woodlands, with a particular focus on the genus Cortinarius.

September 2025