A guidebook to 1,000 specimens of mushrooms, photographed to show the cap, stem, gills, spines and a cross section, usually in various stages of growth.

Amateur mushroom collectors and mycologists alike will find over 300 species of the region's most distinctive and ecologically important mushrooms profiled in this comprehensive field guide.

This volume is the first guide to identify mushroom species not commonly classified or illustrated elsewhere in current literature. The book, which will serve as a companion to other popular field guides, shows how to distinguish lesser-known mushrooms from other common fungi. Found in a variety of habitats in North America, each species has an accurate and up-to-date description, a color illustration, and detailed information on its distinctive species characteristics.

This completely revised second edition provides all the information necessary to identify mushrooms in the field in the midcontinental region of Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Missouri, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin: the tallgrass prairies and the western parts of the eastern deciduous forests. The first edition has been improved in significant ways. The authors have updated scientific names, added photos where there were none and replaced poor photos with better ones, improved the keys, added some species and deleted others, added a section on truffles, and annotated the bibliography. There were originally 224 species; now there are 248. Some of the new photos—125 in all—serve as a second photo for a species, where it is helpful to show details that cannot be viewed in a single photo. The authors describe each species’ cap, gills, stalk, annulus, and season when it is most likely to be seen as well as such characteristics as edibility and toxicity. In their detailed and lively introduction they discuss the economic and environmental aspects of fungi, basic mushroom biology, nomenclature, edibility and toxicity, and habitats and time of fruiting. Most important are the keys, which lead the dedicated reader to the major groups of fungi included in this guide. The section on mushrooms includes keys to their genera in addition to the species within each family discussed, and each of the subsequent sections has a key to the genera and species except where so few species are discussed that a key is not necessary. The volume also includes a glossary and two bibliographies, one with general and one with technical references. Through their detailed technical descriptions and captivating color photos the authors convey their passionate fondness for these diverse and colorful organisms, whose mysterious appearances and disappearances have long made them objects of fascination.

An authoritative and full-color photographic field guide to mushrooms and fungi of the northern United States, from Minnesota to Nova Scotia, south to Virginia. Includes over 700 spectacular photos and excellent species information. Reprinted February 2016 with new ISBN 9781772130003, replacing ISBN 9781551052014.

A new approach to identifying mushrooms based on five key features that can be observed while in the field. Toadstools, truffles, boletes and morels, witches' butter, conks, corals, puffballs and earthstars: mushrooms are both mysterious and ecologically essential. They can also be either delicious or deadly. Thousands of different species of mushrooms appear across North America in the woods, backyards, and in unexpected corners. Learning to distinguish them is a rewarding challenge for a naturalist or chef. Covering most of the common edible and poisonous species readers are likely to encounter, this portable-sized field guide takes a new, simple approach to the method of mushroom identification based on key features that do not require a microscope or technical vocabulary. In addition to the watercolors from the original edition, hundreds more illustrations have been added. These paintings make use of the limited space available in a field guide and focus on the distinguishing details of each species, thereby serving as an ideal tool for beginner and intermediate mycologists alike.

This volume covers territory of tremendous mycological diversity ranging from the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic States, the Midwest through the Plains States, and the Upper South to the provinces of Central and Eastern Canada. The 1500-some mushroom species are arranged in major groups based on similarities in their appearance. A superb section of detailed color photographs accompany each major mushroom group. Includes an introduction to mycology and appendices discussing mycophagy, microscopic examination of mushrooms, chemical reagents and mushroom ID, and classification. Paper edition (unseen), $45.00. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR