Hailed as “one of the most comprehensive mycological guides ever published,” the recently published two volume Fungi of Temperate Europe by Thomas Laessoe and Jens H. Petersen is a grand tour through more than 2,800 of the fungi species to be found throughout Europe’s temperate zone.
Illustrated by over 7,000 photographs, this remarkable brace of book runs past a compendious 1,700 pages in length, making it indeed “a must-have resource for any amateur or professional mycologist.”
Not only are all species included depicted by one or more full-color photographs, each is discussed as to morphology, ecology and distribution within temperate Europe, as well as over 1,500 of them considered in regard to potential loo-alike species. The authors have also distributed the included species among eighty “form groups” and created an innovative system of identification using a “comparison wheel with guiding photos, distinguishing characteristics and drawings of essential microscopic features.”
And lest you may think that this is only a set likely to be of interest to those residing in, or studying the fungi of, the title region, as Else C. Vellinga, writing in Mycotaxon, so well explained, it is “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 [as it is] a splendid example [sic] how to present the multitude of forms in a way that makes identification possible and fun, while at the same time showing the beauty and diversity of fungi.”
