Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest: A Simple Guide to Common Mushrooms (Mushroom Guides) - Softcover

Marrone, Teresa; Yerich, Kathy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1591939607 ISBN 13: 9781591939603

Publisher: Adventure Publications, 2020

Synopsis

Begin to Identify Mushrooms with this Great Visual Guide for the Upper Midwest!

Mushrooming is a popular and rewarding pastime—and it’s one that you can enjoy with the right information at hand. Mushrooms of the Upper Midwest is the field guide to get you started. The region-specific book utilizes an innovative, user-friendly format that can help you identify mushrooms by their visual characteristics. Hundreds of full-color photographs are paired with easy-to-understand text, providing the details to give you confidence in the field. The information, written by foraging experts Teresa Marrone and Kathy Yerich, is accessible to beginners but useful for even experienced mushroom seekers.

Learn about nearly 400 species of common wild mushrooms found in the Midwestern states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The species (from Morel Mushrooms to Shelf Mushrooms) are organized by shape, then by color, so you can identify them by their visual characteristics. Plus, with the Top Edibles and Top Toxics sections, you'll begin to learn which are the edible wild mushrooms and which to avoid.

Get this field guide, jam-packed with information, and start identifying the mushrooms you find.

About this title

About the Author

Teresa Marrone has been gathering and preparing wild edibles for three decades―and writing about them for 25 years. She is the author of more than a dozen outdoors-themed books, including the Wild Berries & Fruits Field Guide series (currently available for four regions of the U.S.) and numerous cookbooks featuring wild foods. She lives in Minneapolis with husband Bruce and enjoys shooting photos of mushrooms, berries and all things wild in the area surrounding their property abutting Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. A born forager, Kathy Yerich has been intimately involved with mushroom foraging for over 10 years. A proud member of the Minnesota Mycological Society and the North American Mycological Association, she has traveled the country in search of fungi. She has recently started seeing a new side of mushrooms with the discovery of macro lenses. A video producer by day, she is more comfortable behind the camera but recently got a taste of the other side, foraging with “Bizarre Foods” host Andrew Zimmern in a web series called “Appetite for Life.” She lives in Forest Lake, Minnesota, with her potter and mushroom-scout husband Fred and multiple four-legged friends. This collaboration with Teresa is her first book.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Wine Caps
Stropharia rugosoannulata (also called Wine-Cap Stropharia, Garden Giant)

Young specimens have pillowy caps with a thick white partial veil underneath; the bottom of the veil has irregular edges, resembling a gear or cogwheel. The cap expands and flattens with age and is generally 2 to 5½ inches wide, sometimes larger. It is burgundy to reddish-brown, with a dry, smooth surface; older specimens fade to tan and can develop cracks, especially in dry weather. There is a persistent ring on the upper stem; the ring retains the gear-shaped edges. Stems are typically 4 to 6 inches tall and white or cream-colored; they are moderately stout and typically wider at the base, which often is surrounded by whitish mycelium (threadlike fungal filaments) that may be visible in the growing substrate. Gills are closely spaced and attached to the stem; they are white at first, turning grayish-lilac to purplish-black. Wine Caps grow from spring through fall on wood chips, mulch and straw, and in cultivated areas. They are present but less common during summer. Spores are purplish-brown to blackish.

COMPARE: Some Russula species (pg. 134; inedible or toxic) have reddish caps; stems have no ring and spores are creamy yellowish to pale orangish-yellow. * Brick Tops (pg. 136; edible) have brick-red caps; stems have a filmy ring remnant or no ring. * Some Amanita species (pgs. 62–67; toxic) have reddish caps and rings on the stem, but they have white spores and a cup around the stem base.

NOTES: Wine Caps are delicious; make a spore print to avoid toxic lookalikes. Wine Caps are available in grow-it-yourself kits, for outdoor gardens.

Edition details

• Publisher: Adventure Publications
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1591939607
• ISBN 13: 9781591939603
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 304