Collins Complete Guide to British Muchrooms and Toadstools allows everyone to identify mushrooms found in Britain and Ireland. The book is illustrated with beautiful photographs throughout, featuring the species you are most likely to see. By only covering Britain and Ireland, fewer species are included than in many broader European guides, making it quicker and easier for the reader to accurately identify what they have found. Extensive details on size, shape and colour are given and over 1,500 photographs help you identify each species. This is the essential photographic guide to the mushrooms and toadstools of Britain and Ireland.
Would you recommend it? Yes |
Total Spent: £14.99| Rating: 8
Strengths:
Fairly comprehensive; I'd consider 900 species of fungi to be a substantial number
Weaknesses:
Doesn't cover; edibility (unless commonly known) or time of year of the fruit body
By my count the book contains photos and descriptions of 905 fungi.
By my count, photos and one sentence descriptions of 13 slime moulds
By my count, photos and one-to-two sentence descriptions of 19 lichenised fungi
By my count, photos of the bark, leaves and fruit of 39 trees
By my count, 8 different habitats (for example 'birch woodland') and the associated fungi
Before you read this review I think it's important to note that I've not been interested in fungi for any longer than five months, at least three of which have been fairly hard winter and two of which I didn't own this guide and so I've not had the chance to use the book to identify any more than about ten different fungi. I have hardly any experience in using identification guides and so don't really know what other guides are out there to compare with this one.
I find that this book isn't as good as 'the Collins gem mushrooms' in the way that it doesn't usually have much to say about the time of year that the fruit bodies of the fungi species appear (whilst the Collins gem does). However the descriptions are usually useful and make positive identification fairly easy for the fungi I've discovered. It does take a while, however, for me to trawl through the photos looking for a fungus that resembles the one I have found. There doesn't seem to be an identification 'chart' or set of steps which would allow quicker identification based on cap shape, colour and spore print etc.
So far I can't complain and actually I'm very pleased with the purchase particularly when used alongside my pocket guide which more easily helps identify the group or genus of the fungus I've found, along with providing a separate description to use in conjunction with the description in the Collins Complete Guide.
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
