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Beginning an interest in fungi - Part 2

by Rus Shulla, Fungimap News No. 3, December 1996

As you will all now be finding, identifying mushrooms is very hard and can take a few years to develop your skills.
When I first started out, I used a little trick that Margery Smith has also told us about in a letter to John. Margery said: "I find a dentists mirror is a great asset in a fungi researcher's field kit. It simplifies studying the underside of rare species without causing disturbance." I used to use a little square mirror but Margery's idea is a lot better.
It would be great if everybody could send in their tips to us about searching for fungi! I am sure John would pass on your messages and I could put them together in this column!
In learning about fungi, one of the strategies I found really useful was to learn in detail about the genera that only had one or two species such as Schizophyllum, Anthracophyllum, Omphalotus, Oudemansiella and so on. I will give a few more next time.
The other way is to learn the genera in your area. Start out with descriptions of two genera. Study them and look up your books!
Speaking of which, when I got a little more advanced I went out and bought a few more books. These were:
Roger Phillips; Mushrooms and other fungi of Great Britain & Europe; Pan Books; London; 1981 & David Arora; Mushrooms Demystified: Ten Speed Press; Berkeley;1986.
The Herbarium Bookshop currently has Phillips' European book. In addition, he has just bought out one on Mushrooms of North America. His photographs are extremely good. David Arora's book was very useful, especially on genera identification. He has quite a sense of humour as well with a very readable style. Increasingly, I find this book is the one I use most as a reference.
When I got into it a bit more I found, however, to my great consternation, that my books disagreed at times. The main culprit in this was apparently incorrectly labelled photographs in Shepherd and Totterdell's book, Mushrooms and Toadstools of Australia. So be careful, read the description and look at the photograph -- if they do not match, it may not be you but rather the book! It's all great learning.
See ya out there.
Rus.

Last modified on 24 September 1998

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