[fairplay]

With bracket or polypore type fungi you can see the shape of the pores better, with other brackets you can sometimes see setae (special thorn/spine shaped cells).
On gilled fungi you can see any gill edge coloration better and also the way the gills are attached to the stem, amongst many other uses.

Also if you come across the 'Tooth Pick' fungus I lend mine so the audience can see the tiny teeth underneath.

Jenny,

Does the model you have, have two lenses ie. the two convex sides facing each other or is it single lens ? if the latter surely there must be a lot of falloff/distortion away from the central viewing area.

Neil.