Mushrooms of Northeastern North America

Rating:
Summary: A must have supplement!
Review: Alan Bessette is truly a great contributor to the field of mycology. Mushrooms of Northeastern North America is a fantastic book on its way to being the "bible" to species in the Northeast. A huge undertaking, Bessette does his best with a dichotomist key arrangement, making narrowing down the possibilities easier. Although aided by Fischers photographs, this guide is tremendously lacking quality, well organized, photographic detail. This book is not for the novice, as familiarity with mycological terms is necessary. I'm waiting for a new, up-to-date, thicker volume: MONNA revised.

Rating:
Summary: A must have supplement!
Review: Alan Bessette is truly a great contributor to the field of mycology. Mushrooms of Northeastern North America is a fantastic book on its way to being the "bible" to species in the Northeast. A huge undertaking, Bessette does his best with a dichotomist key arrangement, making narrowing down the possibilities easier. Although aided by Fischers photographs, this guide is tremendously lacking quality, well organized, photographic detail. This book is not for the novice, as familiarity with mycological terms is necessary. I'm waiting for a new, up-to-date, thicker volume: MONNA revised.

Rating:
Summary: The One Indispensable Guide to Mushrooms in the North East
Review: I live in the NY Adirondack Mountains and have been collecting mushrooms for years, trying to identify them. I almost gave up, but then I bought the Bessette/Fischer book, and identifying mushrooms became not only possilbe, but fun. The photographs are terrific, great aids for identification and often beautiful as well. The keys for identifying mushrooms within a specific genus are very useful - no book has room to illustrate all species, but these keys allow identification of mushrooms that "nearly match" the illustrated species. The book is the most comprehensive guide to mushrooms found in northeastern North America that I have found. Some of the standard "North American" field guides are good, but they all contain a great many species not found in this part of the country, which doesn't leave enough room to cover all of the fungi species commonly found here. George Barron's and William Roody's regional guides are also excellent, but not quite as comprehensive. If you live in the northeastern U.S., this is the one Mushroom Field Guide that you can't do without!

Rating:
Summary: The One Indispensable Guide to Mushrooms in the North East
Review: I live in the NY Adirondack Mountains and have been collecting mushrooms for years, trying to identify them. I almost gave up, but then I bought the Bessette/Fischer book, and identifying mushrooms became not only possilbe, but fun. The photographs are terrific, great aids for identification and often beautiful as well. The keys for identifying mushrooms within a specific genus are very useful - no book has room to illustrate all species, but these keys allow identification of mushrooms that "nearly match" the illustrated species. The book is the most comprehensive guide to mushrooms found in northeastern North America that I have found. Some of the standard "North American" field guides are good, but they all contain a great many species not found in this part of the country, which doesn't leave enough room to cover all of the fungi species commonly found here. George Barron's and William Roody's regional guides are also excellent, but not quite as comprehensive. If you live in the northeastern U.S., this is the one Mushroom Field Guide that you can't do without!

Rating:
Summary: One of the definitive volumes on northest mycoflora
Review: MNNA is a very good book, and has the finest keys I have ever found in any work on mushrooms. However, I find its coverage of certain groups of fungi to be in want of more detail. For example, the avid Russula student will find that few species have been included. The book could use more information on various genera, especially those which are in need of detailed systematic analysis, and more comprehensive data on the taxonomy of included fungi, which has been very neglected. I hope that a future edition of this book may correct some of these problems. Nevertheless, I reccomend Mushrooms of Northeastern North America to all serious amateur mycologists, you will find it to be an indispensable reference.

Rating:
Summary: fairly comprehensive but hard to use. small pictures
Review: this book has a wealth of information but it is organized poorly. the mushrooms are listed alphabetically with the pictures (which are ridiculously tiny) clumped incoveiniently at the end of each section. the annoying organization will have you flipping back and forth. don't expect alot of extra information on edibility or background info. get mushrooms demystified by dave aurora first or instead of.

Rating:
Summary: Encyclopaedic!
Review: This book is really impressive in its coverage. The description are quite complete (although somewhat lacking a section on the details differentiating one mushroom to its similar cousins) and the text is generally well organised. The reason why I gave only four stars to this book is simple: pictures and textual descriptions are separated in different sections! I guess I am still dreaming about a complete guide showing important identification details with pictures and text.