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
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