Mushrooms of the Pacific Northwest (A Timber Press Field Guide)

If you are like many serious mushroomers, your shelves of mushroom books are already overloaded. Every new mushroom book must be evaluated: "Is this book worthy of my collection?" Let's see.At first inspection, it's clear that the book is printed on quality paper, with a durable binding, and with an attractive design. The preliminary sections include information on `What are Mushrooms?', `Guidelines for collecting', `Ecology', `Mycorrhizas', `Mushroom poisoning', and `Identification'. The end of the book has a very useful illustrated glossary and a section on types of mushroom poisoning.As a field guide, the heart of the book is the descriptions and photographs of about 460 species of mushrooms and other fungi. Here, like most mushroom field guides, you will find the mushrooms grouped by macro-morphology and spore print color. There are keys to the 16 groups used by the authors, and keys to the genera in each group, but no keys to the species.The descriptions are well written, as is the rest of the book. They are short, emphasizing important diagnostic characteristics and often include ecological and edibility information. Ideally, I would prefer to see more complete descriptions, but including longer descriptions in a book with this many species would have made a very large book and the authors had a page limit from their publisher. Ultimately I think their decision to include more species at the expense of longer descriptions was the right choice to make. In fact one of the principle strengths of this book is the large number of species included that you will not find in any other field guide. For example, there is no other North American field guide where you will find descriptions and photos of 25 species of Cortinarius!The photographs, mostly by Steve Trudell, are excellent, far better than most field guides. The problem is they are presented much too small. Every mushroomer interested in buying this book would be willing to pay a bit more for a larger book with larger photographs. Obviously the publisher does not understand its audience for this book. It's a shame the photographs are not presented in the size that their quality demands. (The senior author told me that the editor had made a verbal promise for larger photographs, but that was ignored after the sale of the publisher and the change of the editor.)The genera or groups of mushrooms are given a few introductory paragraphs. Relationships to other groups are discussed and the characteristics that unite the group are enunciated. This is very useful in giving the reader a perspective on the group being discussed. The names used for the fungi are up-to-date and significant synonyms are noted. Common names are only given for the few species where common names actually exist. Thankfully the all too common, and regrettable, practice of making up "common names" was not done here.This volume definitely deserves space on your mushroom book shelf; it's a quality book that you will use often. If you are a mushroomer in the western United States, the book is an essential addition to your library.

This is a technical book written in reasonably non technical language for an amateur mushroom hunter who would like to try to identify his species in the field and not pack too much unusable material home. The book will fit in most backpacks. Although 450 species does not seem like a large percentage of the 5000 or so claimed to exist in the Pacific Northwest, the authors have selected the more common ones and the likelihood it will be contained in the book is enhanced. The organization is around general statures so that one goes first to a general construct and then to specific variations to arrive at the final identification. Where there are not too many species in a given genus, this should work fairly well. While the photo illustrations started out as excellent photos, the relatively poor color printing process muddied up details making some comparisons difficult. In some cases the illustration did not seem to identify the characters regarded as diagnostic. The authors eschew keys to species, but do provide descriptions of diagnostic characteristics rather than the more traditional (and less interesting) full description of each species. That approach is commendable. However, size relationships are not as well explained as they should be and a better exposition of size is needed. Due to the DNA revolution a whole new approach to the classification and naming of species has occurred. Those of us who have seen older works at times despair when the new name is not indexed in a familiar place. The lack of double indexing is an important deficit given the magnitude of name changing. However, as a whole this is an important work and a serious effort at balancing the problem of keeping the tremendous array of fungi manageable in the field with a reasonable sized book.

I loved that it included Western MT as part of the NW.Also, included if they are poisonous, edible with excellent photos.

I recently purchased this book as an addition to my collecting library.The plus side:- Excellent photos of the fungi described.- Regionally specific.- Barely lightweight and compact enough to pass itself off as a 'field guide'.The minus side:- Inexplicably ignores popular species regularly collected like Lactarius rubidus ( Candy Cap) and Psilocybe semilanceata( Liberty Cap ).- Even though presented as a 'field guide' it omits sensory identification clues in many instances like smell, taste, texture with each species cited.- Uses a paragraph style descriptive approach that isn't really helpful ( in my opinion ) in a 'field guide'. Compare to any D.Aurora title to understand what I mean.- While providing general edibility information in some cases, fails to do so with each species cited.- Does a poor job, in my opinion, of alerting collectors to potential 'look-alikes' both good and bad and the whole 'edible for some but not others' issue.- The lack of common names, while not technically necessary, is also not helpful.- At times reads like Timber Press had their legal department do the editing.Personally, I collect to consume. While this title is helpful I can't consider it a 'field guide' and would be concerned about anyone using it alone without other, better references like "All the Rain Promises" or "Mushrooms Demystified" ( not a small book either ). That said I do not regret my purchase.

A very detailed book. With photos and detailed illustrations. Information in the regarding the effects of poisoning. I was fascinated by the three Amanita Muscaria (the fly agaric). The various Chanterelles, the close up of the folds are perfect.

The book simply lists all species by latin name, shows one photo for each, and provides tons of information about history and how they were discovered. Perhaps great for some but not useful as a pocket guide for foraging - needs a common names index and foxus on identification and edibility.

This book is kind of informative but difficult to navigate. The index is not helpful for finding a mushroom, not enough emphasis put on common names (such as "morel" instead of "morchella vulgaris") and I can't ID many mushrooms with this book.

I have lots of books on this topic just wished I would have gotten this one first. It’s all you would need for the beginner.

Was a very helpful reference right from the start, well illustrated with easy to follow keys and a good glossary of terminology. Cover is robust and should wear well. Lay-flat binding means pages won't want to fall out after only a little usage. I expect I will get good mileage out of this book.