Fungi of Temperate Europe: Volume 1+2

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It is a splendid example [sic] how to present the multitude of forms in a way that makes identification possible and fun, while at the same time showing the beauty and diversity of fungi. Including agarics, boletes, chanterelles and morels but also more obscure groups such as cyphelloids, cup fungi, pyrenomycetous fungi and hysterioids, this guide takes an unprecedented broad approach at communicating fungal diversity. With its unprecedentedly broad taxonomic coverage, Fungi of Temperate Europe aims to provide a comprehensive overview of fungal species in Europe. He taught mycology at Aarhus University for more than 20 years and is the author of The Kingdom of Fungi (Princeton). The authors are to be congratulated on this truly remarkable achievement, making their many years of practical experience in macrofungal identification available to mycologists at large.

Many thousands of colour photographs throughout, some colour diagrams, a very few b/w line illustrations, 14-page bibliography. 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. Some 2,500 species are described, including nearly every fungus you can identify without a microscope (and a lot that you cannot). With a wheel or two at the start of each new batch of fungi, it is an attractive, illustrative way of getting to the right group quickly, certainly much more quickly than with technical synoptic keys. But the greatest strength of Fungi of Temperate Europe lies in its illustrations, which, I repeat, are simply glorious.

In Denmark, the number of species of fungi currently known is about 8,000, and in the UK the figure is almost double that.

The authors are both English-speaking Danes, and Laessoe, at least, has worked in Britain and knows British fungi. The books are divided into 80 "form groups" each starting with an innovative comparison wheel with guiding photos, distinguishing characteristics and drawings of essential microscopic features. Daniel Dvořák, Petr Hrouda, Czech Mycology "One of the best comprehensive fungal guides for this European region currently available . Hence it includes many Continental species that have not been found in Britain, though fewer than you might suppose, for fungi tend to be more widely distributed than plants.For temperate Europe we estimate that the total number of species is higher than 20,000 and the number of fruitbody-forming fungi is at least 6,000 - 9,000 (including about 2,000 species of lichens). Steve Trudell, Mycophile "With its unprecedentedly broad taxonomic coverage, Fungi of Temperate Europe aims to provide a comprehensive overview of fungal species in Europe.

All species are illustrated with one or more photographs and information on morphology, ecology and distribution within temperate Europe is given. Identification wheels for groups of agarics: Pleurotoids; Clitocyboids; Hygrocyboids; Mycenoids; Tricholomatoids; Collybioids; Marasmioids; Cystoderma and the like; Lepiotoids; Chamaemyces and Limacella; Amanitoids; Russula; Lactarioids; Pluteoids; Agaricus and Allopsalliota; Coprinoids; Psathyrelloids; Hypholomatoids; Gomphidioids and Melanomphalia; Pholiotoids; Little Brown Mushrooms (LBMs); Inocybe; Hebeloma; Cortinarius; Paxillus and the like. 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. 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.something all field mycologists who see it will want to have on the bench near their microscopes when making identifications.

It also means that many old dogmas stand to fall with regard to the nature of fungal biology and classification. You get used to the faintly odd language, some of which is not in the glossary: for example, ‘meteoric’ (meaning, I think, appearing in sudden spasms at long intervals), ‘sordid’ (dirty-looking), ‘speciose’ (a genus with lots of species in it), ‘turgid’ (fresh and swollen with fluid). First published in Denmark with the title, Nordeuropas Svampe, this is a detailed identification guide to "more or less the whole fungal kingdom. The habitat descriptions seem broadly appropriate to British conditions (we are in the ‘nemoral’ zone). 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.

The arrangement, in groups of broadly similar-looking species, is user-friendly (for example, ’little brown mushrooms’, ‘clustered polypores’, ‘spiny corticoids’, ‘perennial, pale-fleshed white-rotters’ etc). Although the authors do their level best to make the subject accessible – jargon is minimal – the book will be most useful to those with some previous experience of identifying fungi. It, in turn, is based on a method devised by the authors and their colleagues, available online as the MycoKey. Irmgard Krisai-Greilhuber, Osterreiche Zeitschrift fuer Mykologie "[A]nyone who has an interest in mushrooms should own this .