Quote:
Originally Posted by thelawnet  On the other hand, failing to discuss edibility is very bad form, as a substantial proportion of readers will be looking for edibles.
Overall the number of species in a small size is good, but the target audience is likely to feel shortchanged by the lack of information on edibility. |
I collected my copy from WH Smith's yesterday - ordered online Tuesday, £10.87 delivered free to my local store.
I disagree with the above criticism re: edibility - there are plenty of other books on the market specifically dealing with edible fungi and this one is intended as a general field guide - explained well in the box entitiled "Edibility" at the bottom of page 5. It does mention those species regarded as good eating as well as those which are poisonous in the text which is good enough for me as I have no plans to eat anything I find anyway!
I still can't see what Beamish means about the photos
- his eyes must be a lot sharper than mine! I can see the dark bit he mentions on the right of that pic on p.167 but I would see that as a dark piece on the (possibly damaged?) other side of the specimen... but then maybe I'm just too trusting! All it says in the book (p.5) is that the photos were mostly taken specifically for the book, some in other parts of Europe. It conveniently fails to mention whether they were in situ or transplanted to a studio so I'm none the wiser!
Anyway, the book looks like a potentially useful addition to my collection of (2 !) fungi books but I will have to wait patiently until we get some decent rainfall and some nice new fungi before I can test it out properly and see if it works!
Gill photos would have been helpful but that would have made the book twice the size and no doubt more than twice the price and the gills/pores are described in the text so in combination with another guide (Jordan, for instance) I think I might be able to manage...
This is going to show up my ignorance of the subject good and proper
but...
do I detect a couple of tiny red bruises on the cap of the amanita Mr Anonymous refers to in his post above?