Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

Excellent Reference Book

Customer Rating:

I bought this and Phillips book "Mushrooms". Both books are excellent but the main difference is that Jordan has photographed the fungi in their natural habitat while Phillips are photographed against a plain backdrop. I much prefer the natural photographs as it helps in identification to see what material and habitat the fungi are growing in. Jordan's book also gives a bit more information on collecting, fungi shapes, colours etc. but this is just a personal choice and others may prefer the Phillips layout. All in all and excellent reference book for the fungi enthusiasts library. My only complaint is that it is far too big to carry in the field.

Lavishly illustrated guide to 1000 European species

Customer Rating:

This guide is on a par with the older Roger Phillips "Mushrooms" and very similar in size and format. Unlike Phillips, all photographs have been shot in situ. With so few guides to fungi available, and each covering a particular selection of species, it's best to assemble a good library - and this should be one of the major works. Even though the focus is Britain and Europe, many of the fungi have much wider ranges and this book is invaluable elsewhere in the world too (I use it regularly in temperate and tropical America). Chris Sharpe, 3 August 2007. ISBN: 0711223793

Simply fantastic

Customer Rating:

I know nothing about fungi until a few weeks ago when using my macro lens I started filming various types simply as most of the insect life had gone to bed for the winter. To ID the pictures I needed a guide to what I was filming. I spent a week or so looking through the Amazon listings and reading all the reader's reviews to try and get the best guide I could. (When I say the best I mean in terms of one I could use rather then something that was too basic or so advanced I'd be lost). With only one review of this book I was in two minds to get or not, but then decided I would give it a go. It came today and for the past few hours I have been going through it. The photos are all by natural light where ever possible,....that means a lot when you are trying to match it up with what you have seen or have a picture of. The pictures are also good at showing the conditions they are found in. The text is excellent for each species. At the front there are various chapters on how to ID the fungi, a colour key and a ID key for all the species featured in the book. Having purchased various guides on insects, plants and wildlife in the past few months I have to say that I cannot imagine how Michael Jordan could have improved on this excellent guide and encyclopedia. My only wish is he turns his hand at an insect guide next!!! LOL. Michael clearly loves his subject, and that love is so apparent in this book. A classic guide.

Very good quality & value for money, but difficult to use

Customer Rating:

* I am a complete fungi novice - please bare that in mind when reading this review! * This fungi encyclopaedia by Michael Jordan is the 2004 revised edition of his highly regarded 1995 original. As a revised edition, you'd expect it to be excellent quality, and so it is; listing more than a thousand species with superb photographs and detailed descriptions. The first `introductory' sections to this encyclopaedia, ending on p33, offer some very helpful advice on fungi biology and structure; with a `How to use this book' feature - which you'll need to read! - and a reference section with bibliography and glossary. The main encyclopaedia then follows. If you take advantage of Amazon's excellent `Search Inside' feature, you'll see how Jordan lays out the entries. It's very thorough, with long, impossible to pronounce Latin names (very few have English names), dimensions, detailed descriptions of the cap, gills and stem of the fungi (if it has them), as well as microscopic analysis of the spores and any relevant chemical tests. Anna and I are, therefore, starting to discover that the task of identifying each fungi accurately is legendarily difficult! This is not helped when names and classification of fungi are continually changing and, authors can apparetnly disagree on both. Also, it appears that fungi are continuing to evolve thus giving rise to frequent new strains. As a novice, this is supremely difficult to overcome - but it is the nature of the fungal beast, not a fault of this book. However, relevant photographs of all listed fungi in their young, mature and `over-blown' state would be very useful. This is because a mushroom (for instance) that starts out as pink ball, may mature into a white umbrella shape. Unfortunately, this encyclopaedia only has some pictures of fungi in their young and/or old states. I think Jordan's offering is as good an encyclopaedia as one can expect, and better than many. But the complexities of accurately identifying each species mean that it is always going to be a difficult to use volume. However, it is still top quality, managing to convey the author's passion and it represents superb value for money. Recommended.