Mushrooms preserved in formaldehyde, for the RBG's mushroom museum

The Jordan Mushroom Project

Finding and cataloguing
all the wild mushrooms of Jordan!

Professor Dr. Ahmad Momany of the University of Jordan spent a sabbatical at the Royal Botanic Garden in 2011-2012, conducting research on wild mushrooms.

He spent the year travelling throughout the Kingdom searching for mushrooms, with the help of local volunteers, and is now preparing a book on Jordan's mushrooms.

Preserved samples of Jordan's mushrooms will be displayed in a future mushroom museum on the grounds of the Royal Botanic Garden.

The goals of the Jordan Mushroom Project were:

Choose the best edible mushrooms
Prepare for commercial production of mushrooms
Teach the local community how to produce wild mushrooms indoors, to generate income
Promote the health benefits of eating mushrooms
Compile a database of Jordan's native mushrooms
Open an online mushroom museum
Create a mushroom exhibit at the Royal Botanic Garden
Publish a field guide illustrating the biodiversity of wild mushrooms in Jordan
Print leaflets to help people differentiate between poisonous and edible mushrooms

Dr Momany has found and identified 137 mushroom species so far in Jordan so far, and prepared a series of mushroom spores and spawns for commercial growing purposes. Two families in Tell Ar-Rumman have been taught how to cultivate mushrooms as a cottage industry.

Watch this video and see the video gallery below for more photographs.

Dr. Ahmad Momany has a Ph.D in Mycology from Hannover University (1983). He has been working at the University of Jordan since 1984, becoming a full professor in 1994. Dr. Momany has published some 50 articles on mushrooms and fungal diseases and a book entitled Wild Mushrooms of North Cyprus (2009), and co-authored four books on plant disease control.