Irregular Books

The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms provides a glimpse into one of the more curious kingdoms of life: the fungi. Containing the familiar molds, mushrooms, puffballs and the weird creeping oozing cooperative slime molds, the fungi are neither plant nor animal. I’ve observed that it’s difficult at first for many people, especially children, who are used to the idea of there being a simple split in life between animals and plants to grasp what fungi really are. However, even without understanding, there is strong interest.

The name of this field guide fails to represent the scope of life covered in its pages. There are many more sorts of fungi covered than just the mushrooms.

Besides, the mushroom is only the tip of a much larger subject. What we call mushrooms are just one part of a much larger organism - in fact, the largest organism alive is a fungus that lives somewhere in Michigan. It covers several acres, but mostly lives underground. Only its mushroom caps are visible above ground, and these appear to be just tiny little living things. Personally, I’d like to know more about the whole fungal body, but this guide doesn’t deliver details about what lies beneath.

This book also doesn’t cover anything close to the variety of fungi that someone living in North America might find even in a quick scan of a back yard. It couldn’t hope to - there are too many kinds of fungus for any little pocket guide to cover. The reader of this guide needs to be aware of this fact, especially if he or she wants to use it to find special ’shrooms, edible or hallucinatory. It’s tricky picking mushrooms, because different kinds of mushrooms can look very much alike, and even experts sometimes get them mixed up. In the case of mushrooms, misidentification can have serious, sometimes even fatal, results.

Nonethless, the Audubon Society has done as good a job as anyone could with such an abbreviated format. Limitations aside, this is a pretty thick little book, and it covers a huge number of fungal species, from the many-headed slime to the aromatic milky, from the big laughing gym to the dryad’s saddle. If you’re curious about a mysterious growth out under your back stoop, you’ve got a chance of finding it between the covers of this field guide, but then again, you’re just as likely not to.

If you’re just curious about what kinds of eerily fascinating sporing bodies can be found in North America, pick up a copy of this guide, in spite of its limitations. What you’ll find inside will open your eyes to another side of life.