Fungi of Temperate Europe: Volume 1+2

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If learning about fungi and foraging in the wild is your thing, you won’t go wrong with this excellent book."—Lee Senior, Towpath Talk a "Fungi of Temperate Europe is one of the most comprehensive mycological guides ever published. Featuring more than 7,000 photographs, this lavish two-volume set treats more than 2,800 species of fungi across the region. Including agarics, boletes, chanterelles and morels but also more obscure groups such as cyphelloids, cup fungi, pyrenomycetous fungi and hysterioids, this guide takes an unprecedentedly broad approach to communicating fungal diversity. All species are illustrated with one or more photographs and information is given on morphology, ecology and distribution within temperate Europe. Furthermore, 1,500+ species are discussed as potential look-alikes. The books are divided into eighty 'form groups,' each starting with an innovative comparison wheel with guiding photos, distinguishing characteristics and drawings of essential microscopic features. Poisonous and edible species are colour coded within the text. Revealing the world of fungi in all its splendour, Fungi of Temperate Europe is a must-have resource for any amateur or professional mycologist." -- Provided by publisher.

Including agarics, boletes, chanterelles and morels but also more obscure groups such as cyphelloids, cup fungi, pyrenomycetous fungi and hysterioids, this guide takes an unprecedentedly broad approach to communicating fungal diversity. All species are illustrated with one or more photographs and information is given on morphology, ecology and distribution within temperate Europe. Furthermore, 1,500+ species are discussed as potential look-alikes. The books are divided into eighty “form groups,” each starting with an innovative comparison wheel with guiding photos, distinguishing characteristics and drawings of essential microscopic features. Poisonous and edible species are colour coded within the text. The wheels are an effective way of summarizing key information (ecological group, substrate, spore and cystidia shape, general macro appearance) for large numbers of groups, be they genera or otherwise. A recent reviewer claimed that they represent keys that you work from the inner zone outward. But I don’t see how they could work that way — who first looks at cystidia before the overall appearance? But they do allow you to see at a glance, for instance, what makes a hydropus different from a hodophilus. The authors have generously made all the wheels available as a large (~180 MB) PDF file at www.mycokey.com. Large printouts of them would be excellent additions to mushroom displays at forays and exhibits. Fungi of Temperate Europe is one of the most comprehensive mycological guides ever published. Featuring more than 7,000 photographs, this lavish two-volume set treats more than 2,800 species of fungi across the region.

The whole process was terrifying with respect to size which no one involved realised before they were deeply immersed in the books. The solution was to keep a tunnel vision most of the time, and just try to finish the one little piece of the puzzle in question and only on rare occasions emerge to the surface to look around and consider the distance to the goal line. With many thousands of just the larger basidiomycetes in Britain alone to choose from, it has become obvious that to include a good representation of species, as in the previous volumes, a fourth volume would be needed. Volume 4 will allow completion of something like 98% of those gilled fungi known to date. This final volume will also include an addendum of species added to the British list since the publication of the first three volumes.

AB - "Fungi of Temperate Europe is one of the most comprehensive mycological guides ever published. Featuring more than 7,000 photographs, this lavish two-volume set treats more than 2,800 species of fungi across the region. Including agarics, boletes, chanterelles and morels but also more obscure groups such as cyphelloids, cup fungi, pyrenomycetous fungi and hysterioids, this guide takes an unprecedentedly broad approach to communicating fungal diversity. All species are illustrated with one or more photographs and information is given on morphology, ecology and distribution within temperate Europe. Furthermore, 1,500+ species are discussed as potential look-alikes. The books are divided into eighty 'form groups,' each starting with an innovative comparison wheel with guiding photos, distinguishing characteristics and drawings of essential microscopic features. Poisonous and edible species are colour coded within the text. Revealing the world of fungi in all its splendour, Fungi of Temperate Europe is a must-have resource for any amateur or professional mycologist." -- Provided by publisher. Revealing the world of fungi in all its splendour, Fungi of Temperate Europe is a must-have resource for any amateur or professional mycologist.Jens H. Petersen is a mycologist, graphic designer, and photographer. He taught mycology at Aarhus University for more than 20 years and is the author of The Kingdom of Fungi (Princeton). Petersen and Læssøe co-created the online identification tool MycoKey This is the third volume in Geoffrey Kibby’s excellent series on Mushrooms and Toadstools of Britain & Europe. It is identical in format to volume one and volume two with species accounts being illustrated with paintings, principally to highlight important characters that are sometimes difficult to ascertain from a photograph. The book is also unique in illustrating microscopic features next to each painting. Authors, Thomas Læssøe and Jens H Petersen have spent the last five years creating the wonderful two volumes set: Fungi of Temperate Europe. They have taken the time to answer our questions about this monumental and daunting project. Readers of FUNGI will probably be familiar with Danish mycologist Jens Petersen, whose book The Kingdom of Fungi offers a remarkable window on the Kingdom to which all of us are so devoted. Another well-known Danish mycologist, Thomas Læssøe, is a senior researcher at the Natural History Museum of Denmark and author of numerous books on fungi. Joining their proverbial hands, these two individuals spent five years putting together a two volume guidebook entitled Fungi of Temperate Europe (Danish title: Nordeuropas Svampe). With such accomplished mycologists, you would expect these volumes to be good, but they’re not merely good—they’re (sorry, but I can’t curb my enthusiasm) utterly sensational, ranking with Fungi of Switzerland as perhaps the best fungal guidebooks on this or any other planet.