Field Guide to Wild Mushrooms of Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic (Keystone Books)

About this book

To most Americans mushrooms are the brown lumps in the soup one uses to make a tuna casserole but to a select few mushrooms are the abundant yet often well-hidden delicacies of the forests. In spite of their rather dismal reputation most wild mushrooms are both edible and delicious when prepared properly. From the morel to the chanterelle and the prolific and aptly named chicken of the woods mushrooms can easily be harvested and enjoyed if you know where to look and what to look for. Bill Russells Field Guide to the Wild Mushrooms of Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic helps the reader learn just thatspecifically for the often-neglected East Coast mushrooms of the United States and Canada. Suited to both the novice and the experienced mushroom hunter this book helps the reader identify mushrooms with the use of illustrations descriptions and environmental observations. Russells fifty years of experience in hunting studying and teaching about wild mushrooms have been carefully distilled into this easy-to-use and well-designed guide. The book is divided into the four seasons each with its unique mushroom offerings. Each mushroom section includes a detailed description information about the mushrooms biology tips on where the mushroom is most likely to be found and a short nutshell description for quick reference. The book also includes color photographs of each of the mushrooms described. Russells Field Guide to the Wild Mushrooms of Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic shows the reader not only how to identify the most common mushrooms found in the region but also how to avoid common copycatsand what to do with the mushrooms once theyre identified and harvested. With both color illustrations and insightful descriptions of one hundred of the areas most common mushrooms Field Guide is an indispensable reference for the curious hiker the amateur biologist or the adventurous chef.