Fungi are diverse, delicious and sometimes deadly. With interest in foraging for wild food on the rise, learning to accurately identify fungi reduces both poisoning risk to humans and harm to the environment. This extensively illustrated guide takes a 'slow mushrooming' approach – providing the information to correctly identify a few edible species thoroughly, rather than many superficially. Wild Mushrooming: A Guide for Foragers melds scientific and cultural knowledge with stunning photography to present a new way of looking at fungi. It models 'ecological foraging' – an approach based on care, conservation and a deep understanding of ecosystem dynamics. Sections on where, when and how to find fungi guide the forager in the identification of 10 edible species. Diagnostic information on toxic fungi and lookalike species helps to differentiate the desirable from the deadly. Wild Mushrooming then takes us into the kitchen with cooking techniques and 29 recipes from a variety of cuisines that can be adapted for both foraged and cultivated fungi. Developing the skills to find fungi requires slowness, not speed. This guide provides the necessary information for the safe collection of fungi, and is essential reading for fungus enthusiasts, ecologists, conservationists, medical professionals and anyone interested in the natural world.

The Handbook of Mushroom Poisoning provides an in-depth examination of mushroom poisoning, including case examples for each toxic class. The book contains specific chapters on mushroom poison pharmacology and approaches to treatment of cases caused by an unknown mushroom or unknown poison. For those who want a broader background, there are sections on gross and microscopic mushroom identification, general information about the types of toxic substances found in various mushroom families, and tables detailing the results of various field and laboratory tests. For those interested in learning more about mushroom poisonings and how to treat them, this book is a must.

Many mushrooms - or the 'fruits of fungi' - are extremely valuable, wild-gathered products which are utilised for both their medicinal properties and as food. In many of the world's tropical and temperate forests, they are the primary source of income for the people who live there. These forests range from temperate woodlands and small forests to high altitude forests in the Himalaya and tropical miombo woodlands in south-central Africa. In south-west China, over 200 species of wild fungi in 64 genera are commercially traded while in Europe and North America, woodlands and small forests are the source of many highly-prized mushrooms and an essential resource for many small enterprises and collectors. Yet the increased demand for timber has resulted in the rapid expansion of forestry, which in turn has destroyed the natural habitat of many fungi, unbalancing both forest economics and ecology. Despite the economic, social and cultural values of fungi, there is a general lack of understanding of their importance to local livelihoods and forest ecology. This book aims to fill this gap and extends the People and Plants Conservation Series beyond the plant kingdom into the related world of fungi and mushrooms. It demonstrates the crucial roles that fungi play in maintaining forest ecosystems and the livelihoods of rural people throughout the world while providing good practice guidelines for the sustainable management of this resource and an assessment of economic value. It brings together the perspectives of biologists, anthropologists and forest and woodland managers to provide a unique inter-disciplinary and international overview of the key issues.

This book is a guide to the fungi of Kansas. It will familiarize you with some of the most common and some of the most beautiful of the state's fungal flora. But it is designed to do much more. It will introduce you to a variety of ways to enjoy mushrooms. For most people they are things of beauty and wonder, to be discovered unexpectedly on a walk in the woods; some try to preserve and communicate their sense of awe on film; others only want to find delectable morsels for the table; a few strive to find rarities or to identify mysterious strangers. This book will help you take the first steps in all these approaches to the world of mushrooming.

California and the Western States are rich in abundant and diverse species of mushrooms. Amateur mushroom collectors and mycologists alike will find over 300 species of the region’s most common, distinctive, and ecologically important mushrooms profiled in this comprehensive field guide. It provides the most up-to-date science on the role of fungi in the natural world, methods to identify species, and locations of mushroom habitats. With excellent color illustrations showing top and side views of mushrooms of the Western States and a user-friendly text, it is informative but still light enough to be carried into the woods. When used to identify mushrooms, keys bring the reader to individual species, with a descriptive text providing cues for identifying additional species. Mushrooms common in urban landscapes are included, which is especially useful for the casual encounter with backyard fungi. The guide also provides a table of both old and new species names, and information on edibility and look-alikes, both dangerous and benign. A section on mushroom arts and crafts features mushroom photography, painting, philately, spore prints, dyes, and cultivation. The guide also offers a comprehensive list of resources including national field guides, general mushroom books and periodicals, club and society contact information, and web sites. · Primary descriptions and illustrations of 300 species of mushrooms plus text descriptions of many more. · Latest word in mushroom taxonomy and nomenclature. Clear discussion of DNA sequencing and new classifications. · Especially good coverage of southern California and Southwestern mushrooms often neglected in other field guides.

Known as the meat of the vegetable world, mushrooms have their ardent supporters as well as their fierce detractors. Hobbits go crazy over them, while Diderot thought they should be “sent back to the dung heap where they are born.” In Mushroom, Cynthia D. Bertelsen examines the colorful history of these divisive edible fungi. As she reveals, their story is fraught with murder and accidental death, hunger and gluttony, sickness and health, religion and war. Some cultures equate them with the rottenness of life while others delight in cooking and eating them. And then there are those “magic” mushrooms, which some people link to ancient religious beliefs. To tell this story, Bertelsen travels to the nineteenth century, when mushrooms entered the realm of haute cuisine after millennia of being picked from the wild for use in everyday cooking and medicine. She describes how this new demand drove entrepreneurs and farmers to seek methods for cultivating mushrooms, including experiments in domesticating the highly sought after but elusive truffles, and she explores the popular pastime of mushroom hunting and includes numerous historic and contemporary recipes. Packed with images of mushrooms from around the globe, this savory book will be essential reading for fans of this surprising, earthy fungus.

"Meetings with remarkable mushrooms are an all-year event for Australian ecologist Alison Pouliot. Bifurcating her life between the northern and southern hemispheres, she ensures that she experiences two autumns per year and has double the chances to find fungi. In this book, she uses visits around the world to show readers the diversity of this life-and makes the case that appreciating fungi is a key to understanding the power and fragility of our planet. With Pouliot as our guide, we learn that fire-loving truffles in the genus Mesophelia transform their scent after burning-from a sweet nut-like aroma into a stink like rotting onion-to lure mammals that excavate and eat these truffles, and then spread their spores. Or, with her, we spot the eerie glow of the ghost fungus. The ghost fungus looks like an edible oyster mushroom, but don't confuse them. If you put ghost fungus in your mouth, it will soon come back out, with everything else in your stomach. Or you might enjoy seeing vegetable caterpillars-neither vegetable nor caterpillar-but a fungus that eats arthropods from the inside out. Pouliot's focus on the global community of fungus experts, the importance of local knowledge, and the historic and current contributions of women in mycology all reinforce her message that understanding fungi is fundamental for us all"--

The Beginner’s Guide to Mushrooms is your ultimate guide to mycology. Whether you’ve never picked a mushroom before in your life or you’ve been cultivating mushrooms at home for ages, the expert advice in this comprehensive mushroom manual will transform your practice. Never before have mushrooms generated so much interest, for their health benefits and medicinal properties, as well as a new understanding of their crucial role in a healthy environment and ability to regenerate damaged ones. If you are a newcomer, mycology, or the study of mushrooms and other fungi, can seem daunting. While other field guides are geared toward experts with advanced knowledge or regional in scope and aimed at only a few easy-to-recognize mushrooms, The Beginner’s Guide to Mushrooms by veteran mycologists Britt A. Bunyard and Tavis Lynch is a complete reference and guidebook to get you started identifying, cultivating, cooking, and preserving mushrooms. The Beginner’s Guide to Mushrooms opens with important basics about wild mushrooming and how to use the book. Information about what fungi are and their role in the environment and around the home is provided in brief and very understandable terms. Basic wild mushroom anatomy is discussed along with how to identify mushrooms and various characteristics to look for—of great importance if you are interested in learning how to recognize edible wild species…as well as dangerous look-alikes. The guide then covers: All the major groups of wild mushrooms, pointing out habitat, region, and notable characteristics—large photographs with easy-to-view characteristics facilitate correct identification. Mushroom cultivation—with easy-to-follow illustrated instructions, learn how to grow mushrooms at home, including how to collect wild specimens and domesticate them. Culinary uses and how to preserve wild mushrooms to be enjoyed in the kitchen all year round. Begin your wonderful exploration of wild mushrooms with this accessible yet thorough beginner's guide.

A quiet revolution is taking place in America's forests. Once seen primarily as stands of timber, our woodlands are now prized as a rich source of a wide range of commodities, from wild mushrooms and maple sugar to hundreds of medicinal plants whose uses have only begun to be fully realized. Now as timber harvesting becomes more mechanized and requires less labor, the image of the lumberjack is being replaced by that of the forager. This book provides the first comprehensive examination of nontimber forest products (NTFPs) in the United States, illustrating their diverse importance, describing the people who harvest them, and outlining the steps that are being taken to ensure access to them. As the first extensive national overview of NTFP policy and management specific to the United States, it brings together research from numerous disciplines and analytical perspectives-such as economics, mycology, history, ecology, law, entomology, forestry, geography, and anthropology—in order to provide a cohesive picture of the current and potential role of NTFPs. The contributors review the state of scientific knowledge of NTFPs by offering a survey of commercial and noncommercial products, an overview of uses and users, and discussions of sustainable management issues associated with ecology, cultural traditions, forest policy, and commerce. They examine some of the major social, economic, and biological benefits of NTFPs, while also addressing the potential negative consequences of NTFP harvesting on forest ecosystems and on NTFP species populations. Within this wealth of information are rich accounts of NTFP use drawn from all parts of the American landscape—from the Pacific Northwest to the Caribbean. From honey production to a review of nontimber forest economies still active in the United States—such as the Ojibway "harvest of plants" recounted here—the book takes in the whole breadth of recent NTFP issues, including ecological concerns associated with the expansion of NTFP markets and NTFP tenure issues on federally managed lands. No other volume offers such a comprehensive overview of NTFPs in North America. By examining all aspects of these products, it contributes to the development of more sophisticated policy and management frameworks for not only ensuring their ongoing use but also protecting the future of our forests.