Shas­tri Boodan

What be­gan as a pri­vate pas­sion for pho­tograph­ing mush­rooms has blos­somed in­to a sci­en­tif­ic mis­sion to raise na­tion­al aware­ness about the hid­den world of fun­gi in T&T for Jef­frey Wong Sang, 62, a long-stand­ing mem­ber of the T&T Field Nat­u­ral­ists’ Club (TTFNC).

Wong Sang dis­cov­ered his fas­ci­na­tion with fun­gi in 2011 while ex­plor­ing the trails of Tuck­er Val­ley in Ch­aguara­mas. Ini­tial­ly drawn to their un­usu­al beau­ty, he be­gan pho­tograph­ing mush­rooms along the path from the Bam­boo Cathe­dral to the Track­ing Sta­tion—a route he had helped main­tain through en­vi­ron­men­tal cleanups for sev­er­al years.

In 2012, Wong Sang sub­mit­ted a col­lec­tion of his im­ages to the then-cu­ra­tor of the UWI Zo­ol­o­gy Mu­se­um. The pho­tographs were lat­er show­cased by the TTFNC and even­tu­al­ly fea­tured in a club cal­en­dar, a move that he says marked a turn­ing point in bring­ing lo­cal at­ten­tion to the role of fun­gi in bio­di­ver­si­ty.

“This cal­en­dar opened the door to rais­ing aware­ness about fun­gi with­in our ecosys­tems,” he said.

Two years lat­er, he launched the Face­book page Mush­rooms of Trinidad and To­ba­go, which has since grown to near­ly 4,000 ac­tive fol­low­ers. Through this plat­form, he en­cour­ages the pub­lic to ex­plore their en­vi­ron­ment, share im­ages of fun­gi, and con­tribute to the col­lec­tive knowl­edge of lo­cal species.

“I’ve had hik­ers in the North­ern Range share pho­tos of rare rain­for­est spec­i­mens,” Wong Sang said.

“We’ve even at­tract­ed in­ter­na­tion­al my­col­o­gists who help with iden­ti­fy­ing species when need­ed.”

In 2014, he al­so ini­ti­at­ed the Fun­gi of Trinidad and To­ba­go project on iNat­u­ral­ist, al­low­ing cit­i­zen sci­en­tists and am­a­teur en­thu­si­asts to con­tribute to a grow­ing dig­i­tal archive of the coun­try’s fun­gi.

With sup­port from Mike Ruther­ford, his men­tor and a re­spect­ed name in nat­ur­al sci­ences, Wong Sang be­gan col­lect­ing phys­i­cal spec­i­mens and con­duct­ing field re­search. Cit­ing stud­ies as far back as 1951, he not­ed that T&T is es­ti­mat­ed to host over 5,000 species of fun­gi.

He is an ac­tive par­tic­i­pant in the TTFNC’s an­nu­al BioBlitz, where fun­gal di­ver­si­ty is doc­u­ment­ed, stud­ied, and ex­hib­it­ed. At the 2024 event in Guayagua­yare, Wong Sang was en­cour­aged by the grow­ing in­ter­est among young vol­un­teers.

“I al­so sup­port the club’s school and pub­lic out­reach pro­grammes,” he said.

“It’s re­ward­ing to ed­u­cate peo­ple—es­pe­cial­ly youth—about the vi­tal role fun­gi play in break­ing down or­gan­ic ma­te­r­i­al and sus­tain­ing ecosys­tems.”

Wong Sang of­ten fields ques­tions from the pub­lic about ed­i­ble mush­rooms and hal­lu­cino­genic va­ri­eties like psilo­cy­bin, com­mon­ly known as “mag­ic mush­rooms.”

“There’s a lot of cu­rios­i­ty around what’s safe to eat—or smoke,” he said. “But I gen­er­al­ly avoid ad­vis­ing on ed­i­bil­i­ty, as many fun­gi have tox­ic look-alikes and lo­cal va­ri­eties re­main untest­ed.”

Still, he sees promise in the mush­room cul­ti­va­tion in­dus­try. With sev­er­al lo­cal grow­ers al­ready pro­duc­ing ed­i­ble va­ri­eties, he be­lieves the sec­tor could ex­pand to in­clude med­i­c­i­nal re­search.

“Im­port­ed mush­room-based sup­ple­ments are al­ready on lo­cal health store shelves,” he not­ed. “There’s po­ten­tial for sci­en­tif­ic ex­plo­ration of our na­tive fun­gi in man­ag­ing chron­ic dis­eases.”

How­ev­er, pub­lic per­cep­tion re­mains a chal­lenge. Many still dis­miss mush­rooms as “jumbie um­brel­las”—a folk­loric term stem­ming from mis­trust and su­per­sti­tion.

“I’d wel­come any lo­cal re­search to test whether our wild fun­gi are vi­able as food or for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal de­vel­op­ment,” Wong Sang said. “Fun­gi have long been known for their heal­ing prop­er­ties, but we need the sci­ence to back it.”

To­day, his work con­tin­ues to evolve. He hopes to pro­duce a lo­cal mush­room field guide and re­vise his pic­to­r­i­al book to help am­a­teur for­agers and na­ture lovers iden­ti­fy fun­gi on their walks. He al­so plans to ex­pand his vi­su­al dis­plays and ed­u­ca­tion­al ma­te­ri­als.

Yet, chal­lenges per­sist.

“I still need a con­sis­tent sup­ply of 70 per cent al­co­hol for spec­i­men preser­va­tion, which I buy when I can af­ford it,” he said.

“I’m al­so search­ing for a safe pub­lic space to house my grow­ing bot­tled col­lec­tion for fu­ture ex­hibits.”

Wong Sang is ac­tive­ly seek­ing spon­sor­ship for pub­lish­ing the field guide and ex­pand­ing out­reach.

“This be­gan as a pho­tog­ra­phy project,” he re­flect­ed. “Now, it’s a mis­sion to ed­u­cate, in­spire, and doc­u­ment a for­got­ten king­dom in our bio­di­ver­si­ty.”