Edible and Medicinal Mushrooms of New England and Eastern Canada: A Photographic Guidebook to Finding and Using Key Species

This is one of three books that I bought to learn about fungi. It is the first book that I read because there are beautiful colored pictures to identify the fruiting bodies (mushrooms) and I figured it was a good place to start. While walking my dog I noticed a few mushrooms on the ground and I was curious as to what mushrooms they were, so I bought this book and 'Mushrooms of the Northeastern United States' by Timothy Baroni and 'Mushrooms demystified' by David Arora. I highly recommend all three for anyone that wants to start to understand what mushrooms are, where to find them and what they look like. After reading all three, it was mid December in New York and I was seeing mushrooms everywhere. I walked past mushrooms everyday that I did not notice before reading about them; now I see them literally everwhere. I see chaga on red birch trees, birch polypores on white birch and I even saw a white aminita completely covered with its veil on one of the trails one morning. There are many more mushrooms that I see that I cannot identify yet, and it is a lot of fun taking pictures and trying to identify them.There is one blown down log that has 4 different mushrooms on it. Before I read these books I only noticed one. Probably the most amazing things that I learned from these books is that the mushroom is the fruit of fungi whose job it is to break down organic matter, to recycle it so that plants can reuse it. And that some fungi break down the lignin in wood, others break down the cellulose and still others are mycorhizal and have developed a symbiotic relationship with specific species of trees where the fungi envelop the root tips giving the tree needed minerals and the tree supplies sugars and water to the mushroom. This relationship has become so codependent that neither the tree nor the fungi will thrive without the other.These books have added a whole new dimension to my walks in the morning. I no longer just see a path in front of me and woods on either side. Now I am starting to see the whole living ecosystem; I am aware of several species of maple trees, oaks, poplars, birches and sadly the devastation that the emerald ash borer is doing to our ash trees. I search each tree for signs of mushrooms, and I find a lot of them. I have joined a local mycology club that will start its activities in the Spring and I cannot wait to see how much more I can learn.I have gained a new sense of empowerment by recognizing some of the parts of our forest ecosystem and realizing that even in winter it is alive and thriving with the recyclers diligently doing their job breaking down the dead and dying trees allowing the healthy ones to reuse those building blocks and complete their life cycle

I bought this book and was unfortunately severely disappointed.Before I give reasons and my opinion why: Please consider the following books as replacements which are available at amazon, and in my opinion far more applicable, exponentially more thorough and responsible guides for avoiding the danger of poisoning eating wild mushrooms.1) Mushrooms of North America; Roger Phillips2) Edible wild mushrooms of North America; Fischer, BessettePhillips is not a Mycologist but he is extremely thorough and his book contains detailed sections on toxic mushrooms with accurate sporeprints, microscope metrology of spores determining spore dimensions and chroma. It is probably THE book written by a non-mycologist. Phillips even contributed a new species, which underscores his thoroughness and his ability to make a contribution to science.That said, the book by Bessette and Fischer, is written by both an amateur and a Mycologist and this should be your fact check book to rely on after you used other books. You should always have a book like this authored or co-authored by a Mycologist as your book for veto-checks and final decisions.I cannot stress more that in collecting mushrooms you should at least have one book which is written or co-authored by a Mycologist. There are lots of deaths every year due to mushroom poisoning and why anyone would take advice only from a book written by an amateur without the sanction of a Mycologist just beats me.Would you trust an amateur brain surgeon to operate on you ? If not then why trust an amateur that gives you advice on possibly lethal food in a complex subject such as Mycology?Compared to the books I mentioned in 1) and 2), the book by Spahr is not written by a Mycologist and is neither co-authored by one. The book contains no categoric treatment in a separate section of the known serious poisonous mushrooms as the other books do. It only mentions briefly e.g. some inadequately covered e.g. amanita species etc inline with the text covering an edible species. It does not redundantly cover the 7 classes of mushroom poisoning, which is crucial for anyone to know before attempting this hobby. In my opinion this is severely dangerous as it installs false confidence by absence of information. Of the 6 chapters in Spahr's book, the chapter on Poisonous Mushrooms is blazingly absent. Therefore in my opinion, no consistent cross-referencing is possible for a user to identify a poisonous look-alike and to protect him or herself. In my opinion the book is inadequate. The typesetting is also awful with ~2inch indents on the left while the text on the right runs into the centerfold, but that is the least of the problems.In contrast the book by Fischer has TWO chapters dedicated to poisoning and poisonous mushrooms are beautifully illustrated in detail and with great professional typesetting. Phillips deals with Poisonous Mushrooms in detail with full photos and illustrations throughout the book with thorough cross-references if they are lookalikes with edibles, but if he were a mycologist it would have been dealt with in more obvious fashion. Phillips' book is however a must have, IF combined with another cross check book written by a Mycologist such as Fischer's book.My health and life is worth too much to me to risk on books not written by a specialist in the field especially if it is topic that could be fatal if you make a mistake.I foraged mushrooms for 30+ years, closer to 40, and never had any bad incidents following books authored or co-authored by a Mycologist. There are many accounts of illness resulting from questionable literature presented by authors with questionable credentials.Again, if you need brain surgery; would you choose a "Brain Surgeon" or an "Amateur Brain surgeon" who never studied medicine? Your life, your choice..

Great photos, informative and a nice place to start if you're new to wild mushrooms. Really enjoyed it and have already found and dried turkey tail and sautéed some chicken of the woods! Comes with recipes and preparation ideas as well!

Living in New England I often enjoy woods walks & have noticed many mushrooms growing in the wild. I thought it'd be great harvesting those mushrooms, enjoying something different from the available supermarket varieties. My grandmother was a master mushroom picker, she knew which ones were okay to eat. A shame she didn't pass that knowledge onto me.I bought this book hoping to educate myself, & despite the plentiful, high-quality photos, many of the poisonous mushrooms look nearly identical to the non-poisonous--you really need a pro to point out the differences. Thanks to the book I have harvested chaga from a birch tree in my yard & enjoy the "tea" from it. And it's nice recognizing what's what out there in the woods growing beside the trail.

I have been trying to learn more about mushrooms for years and this book was amazing. I bought 2 other mushroom books before this and wasted money. This was a great investment.

This book does not include enough information to comfortably identify mushrooms. Image wise it lacks close ups of parts of each species, and cross sections (when applicable) which would be essential to correctly identify specimenAs a book for someone interested in mushrooms, it might be a good read, since it reads like someone's journal at times.. But if you are buying it for a field guide, it isn't much use in my opinion.

I bought this as a birthday gift for a friend, but couldn't resist perusing its pages before wrapping it. This is not your typical "field guide to mushrooms". It is a well written treatise more in the vein of the old fashioned narrative field guides. The author goes to great lengths to describe what to look for, what to look out for, and makes it easy to distinguish one mushroom from the next.As this is a guide to edible and medicinal mushrooms, there are not hundreds of species listed, but Spahr does include pictures and descriptions of easily confusable look-alikes. The day my friend opened her gift, we took a hike and came across a large crop of young Dryad's saddles. Sure enough, the book had advice on how to prepare it, and it was delicious. We even tried the author's suggestion and dried some for soup at a later date. This book would be a great addition to your library.

I am currently still reading this book. It is written for a fairly wide aray of issues and concerns for a beginner forager of Atlantic mushrooms. --- Soo far , soo good.Thanks, -doran

Nice book if you're curious about mushrooms. If you want to eat anything, I suggest buying something else to be sure of your identifications. As the saying goes: "There are old mushroom pickers and there are bold mushroom pickers... but there are no old bold mushroom pickers". A picture can't confirm identification, only that it is NOT this type of mushroom.

I've been nervous about what mushrooms to eat. This book is what I needed to give confidence in collecting and eating the right mushrooms