Fungi of Temperate Europe: Volume 1+2

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Peter Marren, British Wildlife "Not only for people in Europe is this the best guidebook to get, it also is extremely useful for people in other parts of the world. He has previously been a senior scientific officer at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and associate professor at the University of Copenhagen. With its unprecedentedly broad taxonomic coverage, Fungi of Temperate Europe aims to provide a comprehensive overview of fungal species in Europe.

This is an international publication, so there are no English names; and only the latest up-to-the-minute scientific names, although in many cases the authors mention the previous, more familiar, name. The books are divided into 80 “form groups” each starting with an innovative comparison wheel with guiding photos, distinguishing characteristics and drawings of essential microscopic features. OVERSEAS POSTAGE is charged by weight, at cost and is sent by Royal Mail's Priority Airmail service. the greatest strength of Fungi of Temperate Europe lies in its illustrations, which, I repeat, are simply glorious. The second, which takes us to 1,715 pages, includes all the rest: brackets, puffballs, jelly fungi, coral fungi, hydnoids, cup fungi and truffles, with a nod at rusts and smuts, mildews, lichens and slime moulds (and, yes, the authors are well aware that the latter are not fungi).something all field mycologists who see it will want to have on the bench near their microscopes when making identifications.

The habitat descriptions seem broadly appropriate to British conditions (we are in the ‘nemoral’ zone).There has been quite a run of mushroom books lately, each outdoing the last in terms of the quality of the illustrations, but this one simply takes your breath away. This is a really practical book that will be a boon to field mycologists, especially in temperate regions. Not only for people in Europe is this the best guidebook to get, it also is extremely useful for people in other parts of the world. You get used to the faintly odd language, some of which is not in the glossary: for example, ‘meteoric’ (meaning, I think, appearing in sudden spasms at long intervals), ‘sordid’ (dirty-looking), ‘speciose’ (a genus with lots of species in it), ‘turgid’ (fresh and swollen with fluid).

Featuring more than 7,000 photographs, this lavish two-volume set treats more than 2,800 species of fungi across the region. It is very useful both for professionals and for everyone interested in this fascinating group of organisms. In Denmark, the number of species of fungi currently known is about 8,000, and in the UK the figure is almost double that. But the greatest strength of Fungi of Temperate Europe lies in its illustrations, which, I repeat, are simply glorious. The arrangement, in groups of broadly similar-looking species, is user-friendly (for example, ’little brown mushrooms’, ‘clustered polypores’, ‘spiny corticoids’, ‘perennial, pale-fleshed white-rotters’ etc).

Remarkably few field guides bother to do this, and so this aspect of the book gets a gold star from me. Daniel Dvořák, Petr Hrouda, Czech Mycology "One of the best comprehensive fungal guides for this European region currently available . Many thousands of colour photographs throughout, some colour diagrams, a very few b/w line illustrations, 14-page bibliography.