A Guide To Kansas Mushrooms

This book is a guide to the fungi of Kansas. It will familiarize you with some of the most common and some of the most beautiful of the state's fungal flora. But it is designed to do much more. It will introduce you to a variety of ways to enjoy mushrooms. For most people they are things of beauty and wonder, to be discovered unexpectedly on a walk in the woods; some try to preserve and communicate their sense of awe on film; others only want to find delectable morsels for the table; a few strive to find rarities or to identify mysterious strangers. This book will help you take the first steps in all these approaches to the world of mushrooming.

Originally published in 1993, A Guide to Kansas Mushrooms went out of print in 2017. Original author Richard Kay suggested his wife, Sherry Kay, could assume the undertaking of revising the book, collaborating with him working as a consultant. After Richard’s death in 2018, Sherry later added two coauthors, Benjamin Sikes and Caleb Morse, to complete the task. Kay, Sikes, and Morse have revised this new edition to account for the variety of ways mycology has changed in the last twenty-five years, while holding to its original purpose as a guide for active mushroomers. Primarily, A New Guide to Kansas Mushrooms highlights the upheaval in taxonomy caused by advances in molecular genetics: an estimated 25 percent of fungal names included in the original guide have changed since 1993. Second, the list of mushrooms found in Kansas has expanded and the new edition adds 50 species to the 150 described in the original guide. All anthology entries have been updated to reflect these changes in the field, and the essays have also been edited, reduced, or expanded to include updated information as well as brand-new material. The outdated genus-level classification of fungi has been replaced by two cladograms—diagrams that illustrate how organisms branch off from their last common ancestors. This revised edition provides a wealth of new material on Kansas mushrooms that will aid and fascinate both newbies and seasoned mycophiles and includes information on online resources and notes on how to grow mushrooms in Kansas. While the book fully treats 200 species, readers will be able to identify 320 different macrofungi using the keys and discussions. Additionally, this book introduces readers to fascinating, common slime molds (myxomycetes). A New Guide to Kansas Mushrooms incorporates new understanding of fungal taxonomy that has been alrgely unearthed by genetic tools over the past three decades, highlights key taxa, and includes a life list of the more than 1,200 species now cataloged from Kansas—nearly twice the number known at the time of the first edition.

With more than 600 brilliant color photographs, detailed line drawings, informative and illuminating descriptions, and critical identification keys, NORTH AMERICAN MUSHROOMS is the definitive guide to the fungi of the United States and Canada. This comprehensive book for expert and amateur alike offers tips on how, where, and when to collect wild mushrooms; suggestions for culinary uses; a section on mushroom toxins; and pictorial keys and glossaries to aid the user in precise identification. This is a must-have reference book for anyone interested in wild mushrooms, their uses, and their habitats.Dr. Orson K. Miller, Jr. is one of the preeminent mycologists in the United States. His wife and research partner, Hope H. Miller is the author of a wild mushroom cookbook.

This book is a comprehensive field guide to the mushrooms of the southeastern United States. Although it will stand on its own, it is intended to compliment and serve as a companion to Mushrooms of Northeastern North America, also published by Syracuse University Press. Together these volumes form a foundation and reference for identifying mushrooms found in eastern North America from Canada to the subtropics of Florida and Texas. This book features more than 450 species that are fully described and illustrated with photographs, many for the first time in color. The photographs were selected for high-quality color fidelity and documentary merit, and reflect some of the aesthetic appeal of our subject. The number of species described and illustrated in color is substantially more than has previously appeared in any other single work devoted to the mushrooms of the southeastern United States. Cross referencing to additional species occuring in the region that are illustrated in Mushrooms of Northeastern North America is provided. Although this book contains the necessary detail required by advanced students and professional mycologists, it emphasizes identification based primarily on macroscopic field characters for easier use by a general audience. Each illustrated species is accompanied by a detailed description of macroscopic and microscopic features based on the concepts of their original authors.

This completely revised second edition provides all the information necessary to identify mushrooms in the field in the midcontinental region of Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Missouri, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin: the tallgrass prairies and the western parts of the eastern deciduous forests. The first edition has been improved in significant ways. The authors have updated scientific names, added photos where there were none and replaced poor photos with better ones, improved the keys, added some species and deleted others, added a section on truffles, and annotated the bibliography. There were originally 224 species; now there are 248. Some of the new photos—125 in all—serve as a second photo for a species, where it is helpful to show details that cannot be viewed in a single photo. The authors describe each species’ cap, gills, stalk, annulus, and season when it is most likely to be seen as well as such characteristics as edibility and toxicity. In their detailed and lively introduction they discuss the economic and environmental aspects of fungi, basic mushroom biology, nomenclature, edibility and toxicity, and habitats and time of fruiting. Most important are the keys, which lead the dedicated reader to the major groups of fungi included in this guide. The section on mushrooms includes keys to their genera in addition to the species within each family discussed, and each of the subsequent sections has a key to the genera and species except where so few species are discussed that a key is not necessary. The volume also includes a glossary and two bibliographies, one with general and one with technical references. Through their detailed technical descriptions and captivating color photos the authors convey their passionate fondness for these diverse and colorful organisms, whose mysterious appearances and disappearances have long made them objects of fascination.

Mushroom guru Gary Lincoff escorts you from the mushroom's earliest culinary awakening, through getting equipped for mushroom forays, to preparing and serving the fruits of the foray, wherever you live. --Book Jacket.