🥾 Guides: Angel & Hector
📅 Date: Friday, November 28, 2025
⏰ Time: 4 p.m.
📍Location: Central Austin (Sent to registrants.)
🎟️ Tickets: $7+ Member , $10+ Non-member
Family Friendly, Children 12 and younger are free.
Become a supporting member to get discounts on walks, talks, workshops and merch.
🌟 Calling all nature lovers, fungi enthusiasts, and curious adventurers! Join us for an unforgettable hike in Central Austin to search for our state mushroom, the extraordinary Texas Star Mushroom, also known as the Devil’s Cigar (Chorioactis geaster).
This unique mushroom is a true Lone Star State treasure, found in only a handful of places worldwide—Japan, Taiwan, and right here in Texas. Known for its dramatic “hissing” sound as it opens to release its spores, this fascinating fungi is as rare as it is mysterious.
🎥 Watch the magic in action and see why this mushroom has inspired our organization's logo!
🌳 Lace up your hiking boots, grab your curiosity, and join us for a fun and educational outdoor adventure. Don't miss this chance to explore local ecosystems and experience one of nature's rarest wonders up close!
Expect:
Easy-moderate hike with various terrains
Educational program with information about the Texas Star Mushroom
1 mile round-trip
Possible cancellations due to weather
Mushroom Blocks (Angel will bring some for your to take home. Donations welcome.)
What to bring:
Water
Camera if desired
Walking Stick (to help move leaves)
Good hiking shoes, raincoat.
See the Texas Star Mushroom hiss at Inks Lake!
Angel with the an Eastern North American Destroying Angel or Amanita bisporigera
About The Guides
Angel Schatz: I grew up in Missouri with ten siblings, and the first mushroom I ever learned was fittingly the Destroying Angel. It was my introduction to how powerful and mysterious fungi can be.
Before CTMS, I worked as an experience designer and animator in the tech world but eventually, I left that world to plug into a very different kind of network: the earth’s internet, mycelium. Now I’m a forager, urban gardener, and mycology educator.
Through CTMS, I get to share my passion for the ecosystems of Central Texas and help people connect to the fungal kingdom in ways that are joyful, practical, and community-powered. Whether we’re growing mushrooms from recycled blocks or helping trees survive drought through mycorrhizal fungi—we’re building soil and solidarity.
FOLLOW Angel is the Executive Director. See my Tiny Talk
Hector Garcia is studying at Texas State University in pursuit of dual degrees in Biology and Philosophy with focus on Fungi, Metaphysics, Politics, and Love. He firmly believes that not only is observation primary to understanding, but also that community-centered communication of observations is critically tied to progression of ideas, and hopes to spark this curiosity in others to be integrated in our lives and understand the relationship life itself has to the abstractions of reality.