Mushrooms of the Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada (A Timber Press Field Guide)

My oldest daughter is into foraging, and says that this is her Bible!

This is a pretty comprehensive book about the mushrooms found in the Northeast. I find the information to be arranged in a manner that is not terribly convenient for use as a field guide. Once you identify the basic morphology of the mushroom the largest section of the book (mushrooms with caps and gills) is further divided by the color of the spore print. This is somewhat logical, as the spore color is much more consistent than the color of the actual mushroom (which is affected by humidity, age, etc.). However, if you intend to use this book for field identification, it will be difficult because creating spore print takes 24 hours or longer.I also found the information to be a little dry. This is not necessarily bad, but the book uses more scientific terminology to describe and classify the species, and it only makes occasional reference to a common name for a species. I have found that this is really helpful when I have good specimens to examine back home, where I can collect the type of information needed to identify the mushroom through the types of language used in the book, but as a relative amateur I am having difficulty identifying unusual finds without resorting to reviewing large numbers of entries in this book.I am having the most success using a more basic field guide to get a general type of mushroom (collybia, bolete, amanita) and then reviewing those entries in this larger guide. IT really is an unwinnable dilemma: ease of use for beginners necessarily sacrifices the scientific precision of a reliable guide, and a very precise and scientific presentation leads to reliability at the cost of ease. I am glad that this guide is in my mushroom library, and I am sure it will come in really handy when I find mushrooms beyond the most common ones that are found in my basic field guide, which I put in my pocket when I go looking for mushrooms.Some of the reviewers have commented that this guide doesn't have a lot of information about what mushrooms are edible. That is true, but this guide is much more academically inclined and it is not really intended as a guide for those looking to identify edibles as part of their foraging. I generally don't eat anything I find, and my interest is to study different types of mushrooms to satisfy my own academic curiosity. This book is an excellent resource for that purpose.To sum up: I am giving a four star rating because the information and photos are excellent. This book provides additional technical and scientific information on the widest collection of species I have seen in any book dealing with the Northeast of the US and regions of Canada to the north. The deduction of one star comes from the books organization by spore color, which isn't entirely useful in the field) and the relatively dry presentation of the material. I will update this assessment as needed after using the book more (I have had it for a couple of weeks).

Great field guide. There is a color code system for the types you can see when the book is closed for speed. Every entry has a full color picture with it as well. Which is supremely helpful. Highly recommend.

Maybe a little too advanced for beginner shroom hunters.

Purchased for foraging in Wisconsin. It is larger than I would carry on a long hike but good to take along for shorter hikes or use at home. The flexible binding is nice. I have found the information to be accurate and once you become familiar with the way it is organized it is easy to use.

I purchased this book in hopes it will identify mushrooms I hunt for edible use while fishing. It does have a lot of information about fungi in general, but it's not so useful as it could have been. For example, the Black Morel is supposedly "edible and choice with thorough cooking" but the book describes its ODOR and TASTE as "not distinctive", which to me means nothing. It would of been nice if the mushroom had a rating system for taste, like a simple 1 to 5 star rating.Another thing I didn't like is that they mention "if a species is poisonous or a prized good edible, that information is presented in the comments", which is not true, just by going through the Amanita species. It is mentioned in the before the species on a page and says that they are poisonous. Which is fine, but I would of preferred a simple field in the page saying "POISONOUS yes" or even next to the name of the mushroom have it say "EDIBLE", "NOT EDIBLE".I looked up one mushroom, the White Cheese Polypore, and this book says the taste is "not distinctive" and it says nothing about being edible. But having something in the TASTE field tells me it's edible. I googled this and it says this mushroom is not edible. I'm not about to check every mushroom in the book, but for me to pick this one out at random and find conflicting information about being edible is concerning for me.I am a novice and this is my first time looking into this because I'm interested if hunting mushrooms when I go fishing as well, but this book, to me, seems more for the collector rather than the hunter. I did look through the "LOOK INSIDE" option on this page and didn't think anything of it at the time. I pretty much got it based on reviews.It's overall a decent book but there's some obvious things that should of been added to this book. If you are going to get this, use it ONLY to identify. Don't go by whether they say it's edible or not. Google that part instead.I ordered "Mushrooms of the Northeast: A Simple Guide to Common Mushrooms (Mushroom Guides) byMarrone, Teresa", so I'm thinking this book will be what I'm looking for.

I love the content of the book!I was disappointed with the package it was delivered in. It was loose in a bubble envelope that was too big. The book arrived with a dent in the cove and the spine. Since it is a field manual I'm only a little disappointed.

The book certainly is chock full of information on a Lot of Mushrooms. As an absolute newbie, I feEl the book will be better for me, once I've learned more about these fascinating life forms. At that point I'll be able to access the info. more readily, than simply looking through the (many!) photos in search of the 'Shroom I'd just photographed.

I have both the soft cover, and kindle version of this book. If you are serious about taxonomy of mushrooms and live in Ontario and Québec, this should be your first resource. This, along with the National Geographic iNaturalist app, you'll be identifying mushrooms like a seasoned mycologist in no time. I was quite surprised by how many mushroom photographs I could positively identify after having them saved on my phone for years, and not being able to find any id in the past. I was able to find positive ID's for about 80% of the photographs (about 350 photos) I have on my phone of mushrooms in about a week, with these two resources. I love that you can search for specific words in the kindle version, this is a major benefit out in the field. I spent the fall camped out studying, photographing, and foraging choice edible fungus, and the kindle version was an invaluable resource, however, I love the feel of the book in my hand when I'm at home.

Excellent for identifying the most common species of macrofungi in the field. If you expect it to tell you what is edible, change your expectations and/or buy another book. That is not what field guides are for and if you aren't experienced enough to know that, you shouldn't be harvesting wild mushrooms for the table unless you want to risk making yourself sick or possibly even die. There are no cures for certain types of fungi poisoning so don't go picking and eating any form of fungi until you spend years correctly identifying them and have become an expert mycologist. That said, this is a great guide containing the bulk of the diagnostic indicators you will need to correctly identify species.

Very thick 600-page book with coloured picture examples of every mushroom described. Does not, however, indicate every mushroom as Edible/Inedible/Poisonous/Recreational - very good guide for identifying mushroom for botany/mycology class, but not for letting you know if you will survive eating them (... or get appointment with Pink Elephants).Comes in semi-hard cover (reinforced soft cover), which makes it a lot easier to browse through than hard-covers.Feels like it should be upwards of $120, than $50 I paid for it.

The photos are quite good and capture many of the important characteristics for identification. The binding is nice and though I can tell it will get beaten up, the build should be able to handle many years of field use.I would agree with others that this book alone is not sufficient for the mushroom forager but would need to be supplemented by other books or internet searches for that purpose.

Would have been a decent book if the author had taken the time to research the edibility/toxicity of the mushrooms, he only seem to mention this for some types of mushrooms. If he had an Edibility section for each species it may have helped him to be consistent. The edibility or toxcicity is only haphazardly mentioned in the "Comments" section for certain species. Could be useful for species identification but need to check other books for more information. I easily found edible species not classified and also toxic ones not classified. The book needs more work. Added a third star because of the amount of species covered.