Synopses & Reviews
This book identifies all the species one is likely to encounter, with extensive information on their structural features, distribution, and ecological associations. Superbly illustrated, including keys, it is an introduction to their biology as well as a field guide.
Synopsis
Now available in paperback, this is both a field guide and an introduction to the biology of some of the most intriguing organisms on earth. Despite their unattractive name, slime molds are quite beautiful, if often in miniature. Hidden in the leaf litter and other moist, shady places of woodlands and gardens, they possess characteristics of both animals and fungi. For most of its life, a myxomycete exists as a thin mass of protoplasm able to creep and change form like a giant amoeba. After a period of feeding and growth, it moves from its normal habitat to a drier location where it gives rise to one or more fruiting bodies.
Detailed watercolor portraits, pen-and-ink drawings, and photographs illustrate the forms and features of the various life stages of myxomycetes. The handbook includes virtually all the species one is likely to encounter.
About the Author
Steven L. Stephenson is a research professor at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, where he served as director of a worldwide project funded by the National Science Foundation to document the distribution of all the slime molds and their relatives. Prior to this he taught biology at Fairmont State University in West Virginia for nearly three decades. Dr. Stephenson has studied fungi and slime molds on six continents in climates ranging from the tropics to the polar regions of both the Arctic and Subantarctic. He is author/co-author of numerous publications, including
Myxomycetes: A Handbook of Slime Molds (Timber Press, 1994) and
Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms of the World (Timber Press, 2003).