Common Edible & Poisonous Mushrooms of the Northeast
By C. Leonard Fergus and Charles Fergus
2.5/5
()
About this ebook
Related to Common Edible & Poisonous Mushrooms of the Northeast
Related ebooks
Field Book of Common Mushrooms - With a Key to Identification of the Gilled Mushroom and Directions for Cooking those that are Edible Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEdible Mushrooms: Safe to Pick, Good to Eat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Field Guide to Wild Mushrooms of Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAppalachian Mushrooms: A Field Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsField Guide to Mushrooms of Western North America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMushrooms of the Northwest: A Simple Guide to Common Mushrooms Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIntroduction to Mushrooms: Grow Mushrooms for Pleasure and Profit Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mushroom Hunting Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMushrooms of the Upper Midwest: A Simple Guide to Common Mushrooms Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Beginner's Guide to Mushrooms: Everything You Need to Know, from Foraging to Cultivating Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fungipedia: A Brief Compendium of Mushroom Lore Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fungi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mushroom Growing Today Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMushrooms Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Fabulous Wild Fungi ~ Wildly Creative Cuisine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMushrooms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Concise Mushroom Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Book of Seeds: A Life-Size Guide to Six Hundred Species from Around the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life in a Gall: The Biology and Ecology of Insects that Live in Plant Galls Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mushroom Growing - A Practical Manual Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFungi: Their Nature and Uses Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Deerholme Mushroom Book: From Foraging to Feasting Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Pocket Guide to Wild Mushrooms: Helpful Tips for Mushrooming in the Field Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wild Mushrooming: A Guide for Foragers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIdentifying & Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foraging for Survival: Edible Wild Plants of North America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Nature For You
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Silent Spring Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lucky Dog Lessons: Train Your Dog in 7 Days Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Journey Through Anxiety Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Solace of Open Spaces: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - 10th anniversary edition: A Year of Food Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Desert Solitaire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Family and Other Animals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Floriography: An Illustrated Guide to the Victorian Language of Flowers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mother of God: An Extraordinary Journey into the Uncharted Tributaries of the Western Amazon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Must Say: My Life As a Humble Comedy Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 2: The Pillars of Civilization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5SAS Survival Handbook, Third Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Surviving Anywhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edible Wild Plants Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shelter: A Love Letter to Trees Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Common Edible & Poisonous Mushrooms of the Northeast
2 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Common Edible & Poisonous Mushrooms of the Northeast - C. Leonard Fergus
1858
Contents
Introduction
Important Parts of Mushrooms
Some Common Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms of the Northeast
Identification Key
Gilled Fungi
Boletes
Polypores
Toothed Fungi
Coral Fungi
Club and Funnel Fungi
Sponge and Saddle Fungi
Puffballs
Destroying Angel
Mushrooms by Month of First Appearance
References
Acknowledgments
Introduction
My father, C. Leonard Fergus, lived from 1917 to 1986. When he brought out this booklet on mushrooms in 1960, he was a professor of mycology and plant pathology (fungi and plant diseases) at Pennsylvania State University. The booklet, a basic guide for beginning mushroom hunters, was originally published by Penn State’s College of Agriculture under the title Some Common Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms of Pennsylvania. The forty-three mushrooms described herein have a greater range than Pennsylvania, and this publication is pertinent for northeastern North America, roughly from the Mississippi River east and from Virginia north to southern Canada. Many of the species also occur in the Midwest and the South.
For years, different people have suggested that I republish my father’s booklet, long out of print. I have a fair knowledge of mushrooms myself. When I was young, my father often took me along when he went collecting specimens to show to his students or to place in the university’s Mycological Herbarium, of which he was the curator. I could recite the scientific names of many fungi before I knew my multiplication tables. Looking for mushrooms was a treasure hunt, with my father’s approbation the reward when I spotted a colorful cap tucked away in the leaf mold or peeking up at the base of a log. Much later, as a science writer at Penn State, I took my father ’s advanced mycology course—the last time he taught it before he retired. We keyed out many specimens and also studied mushrooms under the microscope—their gills or spines or pores, their spore-bearing structures, and the spores themselves—which revealed another level of beauty in those mysterious, ephemeral fruits.
The mushrooms in this book are like old friends to me. I have dined on the edible ones and admired and photographed many others. Mushrooms are evanescent; they are the outward evidence of unseen organisms dwelling in trees and the earth, and they appear like spirits. It still thrills me to find a ring of Meadow Mushrooms newly sprung up in a pasture, a troop of King Boletes on the forest floor, the dazzling irruption of a Sulphur Shelf on an oak stump, or a Destroying Angel standing ominous in its cloak of white.
A word about taxonomy. As they are wont to do with all living things, scientists classify fungi: they place them in groups and give them names based on their physical characteristics. In a booklet of this scope, one need be concerned only with the categories genus and species. Take the dramatic, dangerous Destroying Angel as an example: it is assigned the scientific name Amanita virosa. This signifies that it belongs to genus Amanita (from the Greek amanitai, a fungus), a related group of numerous attractive fungi, many of them poisonous; and gives it its own identity as the type or species A. virosa, Latin viros for poisonous.
In updating my father’s text, to keep pace with scientific advances in mushroom classification, I have changed the taxonomic names he used; alternate or former names are included in parentheses. For each species, I checked in current guides and made sure my father’s original description was accurate. In some cases I added new findings or pertinent information that may have been left out of the original publication because of space constraints.
I was fortunate to locate the original negatives for the photographs illustrating the different mushrooms. The glass plate negatives were being stored in a sturdy oak cabinet at Penn State’s Mont Alto campus near Chambersburg. (As of this writing, the negatives and mycological specimens are scheduled to be transferred to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Beltsville, Maryland.) Lee O. Overholts, a professor in the botany department of Penn State, had taken the photographs mainly in the 1930s. I want to particularly thank Herb Cole and Eva Pell, Penn State faculty members and administrators, for making it possible for us to reuse those excellent images.
A mushroom, no matter its shape or color or size, is