Fungi of Temperate Europe: Volume 1+2

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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). 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. 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. 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.

But the greatest strength of Fungi of Temperate Europe lies in its illustrations, which, I repeat, are simply glorious. With its unprecedentedly broad taxonomic coverage, Fungi of Temperate Europe aims to provide a comprehensive overview of fungal species in Europe. Daniel Dvořák, Petr Hrouda, Czech Mycology "One of the best comprehensive fungal guides for this European region currently available .

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. All species are illustrated with one or more photographs and information is given on morphology, ecology and distribution within temperate Europe. 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. This is an international publication, so there are no English names; and only the latest up-to-the-minute scientific names, although in many cases the authors mention the previous, more familiar, name.

It contains brief descriptions, up-to-date taxonomic names, and keys to identification based on innovative “fungal wheels. There are roughly 7,000 colour photographs (yes, you read that right), many of them occupying a third or a half of a page.Some 2,500 species are described, including nearly every fungus you can identify without a microscope (and a lot that you cannot). The authors are both English-speaking Danes, and Laessoe, at least, has worked in Britain and knows British fungi. 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). There has been quite a run of mushroom books lately, each outdoing the last in terms of the quality of the illustrations, but this one simply takes your breath away. With the new DNA-based techniques, fungi can be detected from any medium, including wood and soil samples.

OVERSEAS POSTAGE is charged by weight, at cost and is sent by Royal Mail's Priority Airmail service. The second, which takes us to 1,715 pages, includes all the rest: brackets, puffballs, jelly fungi, coral fungi, hydnoids, cup fungi and truffles, with a nod at rusts and smuts, mildews, lichens and slime moulds (and, yes, the authors are well aware that the latter are not 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.

Steve Trudell, Mycophile "With its unprecedentedly broad taxonomic coverage, Fungi of Temperate Europe aims to provide a comprehensive overview of fungal species in Europe.