Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast A Comprehensive Guide to the Fungi of Coastal Northern California

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This is a gorgeous book. Wonderful photography! Each mushroom is shown at different stages and against it's natural background. Really dense with information. Very informative about habitat with great photographs of important trees in the lives of the fungi. Great glossary, two indexes for Latin names as well as common names, good resource guide and an extensive bibliography. The only drawback is that the book is huge. Not something you can carry to the woods with you, but a fantastic resource when you get your collection home.

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Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast is a beautifully designed reference work for fungi fanatics. Anyone who loves mushrooms will enjoy it, though it is most suited for those whose passion includes mushroom hunting and collecting. It begins with a comprehensive introduction including a taxonomy describing their morphology. The descriptions and illustrations are clear. They include directions on finding, collecting, identifying and even photographing mushrooms. This is a reference book, for browsing, for looking up, not for reading. Nonetheless, the authors bring a beautiful descriptive elegance to their work. For each mushroom, there is a description of its morphology for identification, a description of its ecology (where you will find it) and its taste. There are moments of poetry such as describing how one mushroom is hard to find because it’s hidden in the rotting leaves and humus that cover the forest floor but that its golden color seems to glow against the darkness of the duff. There are also moments that made me smile, like coming across a description of the taste of Sullus Umbonatus. “Nontoxic, but so are banana slugs.” How often do reference book writers show their human face? I loved that so much, I hugged my copy of the book I think many of the mushrooms will be found in Oregon as many of the trees they list as environments for the mushrooms are also found here. I was provided a review copy by Blogging For Books.