Good fungi books (possibly a sticky?)

[arvensis]

Hi all,
I know this topic was posted ages ago but since fungi get quite a bit of interest(no doubt it will increase over the next few months), wouldn't it be a good idea to make a sticky for good/useful fungi books?

I'll start the ball rolling:

Fungi of Switzerland 1-6 - pricey(£80-85 each on average!) but the microscopic detail for each species will be handy, especially, the lesser known ones.

Mushrooms & Toadstools of Britain and Europe £19.95(Courtecuisse and Duhem)- Sadly out of print, but I find it a very useful field guide.

There's plenty of others if anyone wants to add to the list.

Mark

[FungiJohn]

Hello Mark

You can find books in the Fungi Reference section:

Fungi | Wild About Britain

John

[flaxton]

Originally Posted by arvensis

Hi all,
I know this topic was posted ages ago but since fungi get quite a bit of interest(no doubt it will increase over the next few months), wouldn't it be a good idea to make a sticky for good/useful fungi books?

I'll start the ball rolling:

Fungi of Switzerland 1-6 - pricey(£80-85 each on average!) but the microscopic detail for each species will be handy, especially, the lesser known ones.

Mushrooms & Toadstools of Britain and Europe £19.95(Courtecuisse and Duhem)- Sadly out of print, but I find it a very useful field guide.

There's plenty of others if anyone wants to add to the list.

Mark

Mark
Your prices are a bit out of date. Now the £ - Euro rate is not good on the NHBS website the FOS books start at £101 and to up to £132

Mal

[ron1863]

Over £600 for all the volumes Are they worth the £100 price tag or is the Phillips and Jordan books enough for one man

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by ron1863

Over £600 for all the volumes Are they worth the £100 price tag or is the Phillips and Jordan books enough for one man

OK . . . . how to make oneself unpopular

as someone who tends towards anarchism as regards the information required for people to pursue their interests I would love it if all the information in the books mentioned above were available to all

I'm sure that as far as the authors are concerned (and some of those are sadly no longer with us) they would be happy for their work to be made available . . . sadly publishers (and especially academic publishers) do not think along those lines, although the digital age can completely circumvrent the role of 'publisher' - trees do not have to be pulped to produce a book which was out of date months before it appeared);

with the decline in professional taxonomists this is crucial - soon the only people able to further the study of the British fungi will be amateurs and the more support they can get the better (though this is an appalling prospect - Andreas what is the parallel position in Germany?)

the end result of all this is that amateur mycologists without deep pockets are in a quandary - Ron makes the good point that £600 is a lot of money: if someone had that amount to spend I would immediately say if you haven't got a microscope and you have that amount of money to spend, forget the books get a microscope; anyone can see there are people on this site willing to help you once you have taken that big step

the analogy is a bit like studying the butterflies and moths - if you buy the equivalent of Jordan and Phillips you will be able to name the butterflies and quite a number of the larger moths; once you get on to the equivalent of the 'pugs' you will need books like Fungi of Switzerland, and once you get on to the serious micro's you will need specialist literature and you will have to examine the 'rude bits' of said moths in order to name them - and by micro's, to continue the analogy, I mean fungi which require microscopic examination - i.e. 'little brown jobs' in genera like Panaeolus, Conocybe, Galerina, Naucoria, Inocybe, and so on and so on

and with regard to the fungi the information is not always available in books (no matter how expensive), but in papers, overviews, reviews, in journals like Mycologia, Karstenia, Canadian Journal of Botany and scores of others, difficult for amateurs to get their hands on . . . every so often someone is courageous enough to produce a book (or the equivalent) on the boletes, Entoloma, Coprinus, Lepiota, Amanita and so on - problem is that no sooner do these volumes appear than other mycologists start to voice their counter-opinions . . .

oh dear I'm rabbiting on . . . by all means list books, but please be aware that they will almost certainly only show a fraction of what you could find when out and about - and if you want certainty limit yourself to a small, non-fungal, group (say the dragonflies) or a well-known group (say the flowering plants, where providing you have the plant at the right stage, naming it is fairly straightforward) . . .

no pun intended - well not much - but the study of fungi is a class apart, with pitfalls (and indeed rewards) to match

cheers

Chris

PS - do check out the thread on useful online information which Melanie (Sheffield Lass) has started; this is (I hope) where the future lies . . .

[SheffieldLass]

Originally Posted by Chris Yeates

the end result of all this is that amateur mycologists without deep pockets are in a quandary - Ron makes the good point that £600 is a lot of money: if someone had that amount to spend I would immediately say if you haven't got a microscope and you have that amount of money to spend, forget the books get a microscope; anyone can see there are people on this site willing to help you once you have taken that big step

cheers

Chris

PS - do check out the thread on useful online information which Melanie (Sheffield Lass) has started; this is (I hope) where the future lies . . .

I'd agree with almost all that you say ... with the £600 I'd want to get Funga Nordica as well as the microscope. That has been by far the most value for money book that I've acquired, and it does come with Mycokey too, which has a few pictures to help. And slip in a Phillips and/or Jordan just for some more pictures to get on the right track. With all the expertise on WAB and the various websites around you can get quite a long way with that combination.

I've still not got round to checking whether as a former graduate I have ejournal access via my former university (I always think about it on a Sunday, and forget during the week to ring up and ask!). They would certainly have access to some if not all the journals Chris mentioned. So that is possibly another way to further information.

(Oh, just noticed a maggot walking over my screen .. that must have emerged from the Suillus sat beneath the screen ... hmmm, a few wandering around now that I look .... )

Melanie