Synopses & Reviews
California is one of the most ecologically rich and diverse regions of North America, and home to hundreds of species of mushrooms. In California Mushrooms, mycologist experts Dennis Desjardin, Michael Wood, and Fred Stevens provide over 1100 species profiles, including comprehensive descriptions and spectacular photographs of 650 species. Each profile includes information on macro- and micromorphology, habitat, edibility, and comparisons with closely related species and potential look-alikes.
Although the focus of the book is on mushrooms of California, over 90% of the species treated occur elsewhere, making the book useful throughout western North America. California Mushrooms also provides information on when and where to find mushrooms; guidelines on how to collect and identify mushrooms; keys to species; and overviews of nomenclature and taxonomy, morphology and phylogeny, fungal ecology, biology of mushrooms, and mushroom toxins. This complete reference covers everything necessary for the mushroom hunter to accurately identify over 650 species.
Synopsis
Winner of the CBHL Award of Excellence
California is one of the most ecologically rich and diverse regions of North America, and home to hundreds of species of mushrooms. In California Mushrooms, mycologist experts Dennis Desjardin, Michael Wood, and Fred Stevens provide over 1100 species profiles, including comprehensive descriptions and spectacular photographs. Each profile includes information on macro- and micromorphology, habitat, edibility, and comparisons with closely related species and potential look-alikes. Although the focus of the book is on mushrooms of California, over 90% of the species treated occur elsewhere, making the book useful throughout western North America. This complete reference covers everything necessary for the mushroom hunter to accurately identify over 650 species.
Synopsis
California Mushrooms is a comprehensive and authoritative account of the hundreds of mushrooms that can be found throughout the state. It includes introductory information on the nomenclature, taxonomy, morphology, phylogeny, biology, and ecology of mushrooms. Hundreds of mushroom profiles are organized by mushroom type, including gilled mushrooms arranged by color, boletes, polypores, spine fungi, thelephoroid and stereoid fungi, club and coral fungi, gasteromycetes, crust fungi, jelly fungi, morels, false morels, elfin saddles, cup fungi, and hypogeus fungi. Color photographs of each mushroom help to aid in safe identification, an essential feature for safe foraging.
About the Author
Dennis E. Desjardin is professor of biology at San Francisco State University. He received a master’s degree from San Francisco State University studying with Harry D. Thiers, and a PhD from the University of Tennessee under the tutelage of Ronald H. Petersen. He also trained with Alexander H. Smith, Rolf Singer, Meinhard Moser, and Egon Horak. Desjardin is a Fellow of the Mycological Society of America, which awarded him the Alexopoulos Prize for outstanding research and the William H. Weston Award for teaching excellence, and a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences. He has published over 120 scientific papers on the taxonomy and evolution of mushroom-forming fungi, in which he described 225 new species and seven new genera. He has active research projects in the Hawaiian Islands, Micronesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil, and the African islands of São Tomé and Príncipe. A recent interest is in the origin and evolution of bioluminescent fungi. Born and raised in Crescent City, California, he has been collecting and studying California mushrooms for over 50 years.
Michael G. Wood, a California native, is a computer consultant by profession and a mycologist and photographer by obsession. He is a past president of the Mycological Society of San Francisco (MSSF) and chair of its systematics committee; the publisher and webmaster for MykoWeb (mykoweb.com); and the former webmaster for the MSSF and the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) websites. Wood has been an avid mushroom collector, photographer, and taxonomist for over 30 years. His mushroom photographs have been published in many scientific journals, books, magazines, newspapers, and websites. He has led numerous workshops and countless forays for the MSSF and others, and is currently collaborating on a second book, Mushrooms of the Great Smoky Mountains.
Frederick A. Stevens has a doctorate in botany from UCLA. He has photographed and studied the macrofungi of the San Francisco Bay Area for more than two decades, with a special interest in gasteromycetes and the genus Agaricus. Stevens is the coauthor, with Michael G. Wood, of The Fungi of California (californiafungi.com), and a past president of the Mycological Society of San Francisco. He has led numerous mushroom walks and consults with physicians and veterinarians on mushroom poisonings.