Collins Fungi Guide: The most complete field guide to the mushrooms and toadstools of Britain & Ireland

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Mycology, or mushrooming, can appeal on many levels, from the simple pleasure of seeing strange and wonderful organisms to the intellectual challenge of trying to identify them and understand their intricate life cycles. But the starting point is, and always will be, a good book! And finally… hand lenses to help with mushroom identification The appearance of the gill margin (its lower edge) is especially important in some genera. It may be described as undulating or wavy in the same way as the edge of the cap itself, but quite commonly gills are found that appear toothed or minutely ragged. Sometimes the gill edge is of a different colour to the remainder of the gill whereas overall gill colour, especially the difference between immature and mature gills, is very important in some groups. Surface features of gills are not as important in identification as the surface features of the cap, although in a few groups the relative waxiness or pubescence (minute hairiness, like the surface of a peach) is used as a diagnostic criterion.

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Collect only specimens in good condition; old or rotten specimens will not make a good meal and can cause serious stomach upsets. The manifestations of a universal veil are somewhat different. Universal veils are not formed by all agarics but when present they envelop the entire developing ‘button’ and as the fruit body expands and matures, fragments of the veil remain as flakes on the cap surface, often in contrasting colour to the remainder of the cap. More significantly, however, the veil remains enveloping the base of the stem as a structure called a volva, the presence of which is characteristic of certain genera. The volva takes one of two main forms: when its tissues adhere closely to the stem base, it is called adherent and its surface may be loose and scaly, powdery or, sometimes, marked with characteristic concentric zones; when the volva envelops the stem base like a loose bag, it is said to be free and its tissues may then vary from very fragile to fairly tough and membranous.Mushrooms is my personal take on the world of fungi in Britain, about the pleasures of searching for mushrooms and toadstools, and why they matter. I have written it as a narrative, in current TV parlance as a ‘journey’, beginning with the extraordinary diversity of fungi and the ways in which they exploit the natural world to the history of the fungus foray and the controversy over gathering wild mushrooms for the pot. In the process I zoom in on the nature of names, both Latin and English, at the places which hold the greatest diversity of fungi, and our attempts to conserve rare and vanishing fungi. It is, I hope, a refreshing and amusing look at this ‘third world’ of life, written without jargon and in lively style. I hope it can be read with pleasure by anyone. It is full of lovely colour photographs. Fungi are also uniquely distinct in relation to their mode of nutrition. Plants photosynthesise, a process in which solar energy is absorbed by green chlorophyll and used to bring about the formation of nutrient substances from the raw materials of atmospheric carbon dioxide and water. No fungus can photosynthesise, and even the few species that sometimes display a green fruit body colouration or green spores do not contain chlorophyll. Fungi also have a mode of nutrition different from animals in that while animals eat, digest and then absorb the digested matter internally, fungi secrete enzymes externally from their hyphae into the environment where organic matter is broken down and then absorb the resulting chemicals from there. Like animals therefore, fungi are dependent for their nutrient source on other organisms, either living or dead. And this dictates where they grow: typically on soil, using humus and plant remains for nutrition; directly on wood or other plant matter; or sometimes parasitically on still living plants.

Collins Fungi Guide: The most complete field guide to the Collins Fungi Guide: The most complete field guide to the

I bought this guide because I take photos of fungi during autumn and it is notoriously difficult to identify them. Other fungi books are limited in species so I could never be sure of a correct identification. Apply a few drops of a fresh aqueous solution of 10 per cent (weight: volume) ferric chloride or ferric sulphate to the stem and observe any colour change. If it is possible to obtain a large crystal of ferric sulphate, this can be rubbed directly on the stem and so used for rapid identification of certain species of Russula in the field. It can be kept fresh when not in use by placing it in a corked tube containing a wad of cotton wool moistened with dilute ammonium sulphate. Living organisms are given names and are classified into groups; fungi are no exception. The scientific names used for organisms today are based on a binomial or two-name system based on Latin and other languages and using Latin grammar derived from one devised by the Swedish biologist Linnaeus (Carl von Linné, 1707–1778). The binomial of each organism does more than signify its uniqueness, however, as it also attempts to indicate its relationship to other similar forms. Whilst each group of basically identical individuals is called a species, designated by the second of the two names, the larger groups to which similar species are considered to belong are called genera (singular genus) and it is the genera that contribute the first name. So, the fungus genus Lepiota includes species like Lepiota lilacea, Lepiota magnispora and Lepiota obscura. The specific or trivial name often attempts to give some information about the organism, for example lilacea signifies a lilac-coloured fungus and magnispora one with large spores, although sometimes, as in obscura, it does no more than recognise some undefined peculiar feature. I would certainly recommend the boletes as an ideal group to begin with. They are often large, very brightly coloured and with good field characters and include a number of excellent edible species. Almost all the species can be identified in the field with a little experience and a good reference work. After 48 years of studying fungi the boletes remain among my favourites and many other mycologists will say the same. The book on boletes which I have produced, British Boletes, aims to provide easy to use keys based mainly on field characters and photographs of the vast majority of the British species. My books tend to focus on the most widely studied and popular groups of fungi. Hence I have titles covering Russula (The Genus Russula in Great Britain), Agaricus ( The Genus Agaricus in Britain) and my most recent work The Genus Amanita in Great Britain. All are available from NHBS. Further titles will be forthcoming in the next few months, in particular one on the genus Lactarius, commonly called Milkcaps and further down the road an illustrated field guide to 1200 species of larger fungi. Geoffrey Kibby’s top tips for safe mushroom identificationFinally, it should be noted if the gills are deliquescing or self-liquefying and turning inky, a characteristic of many species in the genera Coprinus, Coprinopsis, Coprinellus and Parasola.