Mushrooms of the Georgia Piedmont and Southern Appalachians

This book is chock-full with valuable information for mushroom enthusiasts. Living in the Georgia Piedmont, I am very happy to have found such a professionally written and comprehensive field guide. Alone the introduction is worth the price of the books. It gives the reader a crash course in the biology of fungi with info on their classification, their nomenclature, mushroom reproduction, mushroom toxicity, edibility, and medicinal relevance. In the introduction you can also find all the equipment and materials you need for the successful collection of mushrooms and their identification in the field or in a lab.
As a visual person, I find the Pictorial Primer on page 51 about the terminology used in the book to describe mushroom shapes and other attributes very helpful for the identification process. The dichotomous key is accompanied with photographs representing the major mushroom forms to guide the reader through the book. Microscopic slide photographs of different spore types are also provided for the identification with a microscope.
The actual guide part of the book is excellent. Each mushroom featured comes with excellent photographs and descriptions. Here is just one example: One pages 224 ff. you can find a bolete named Old Man of the Woods, also known as Strobilomyces floccopus, S. confusus, and “Strobilomyces dryophilus”. This mushroom is accompanied with 2 color photographs of its fruiting body taken from the side, one closeup photograph of its pore surface, a photograph showing how the mushroom stains, and two microscopic spore photographs. The written descriptions of all mushrooms are very detailed and the comments and the end of each description give further information that goes far beyond simple identification.
This book has earned more than 5 stars.