Mushrooms North Fife July 2009

On my way to Cupar North Fife near the hamlet of Rathillet I came across this dead Ash tree sprouting Dryad's saddle mushrooms. Too high up to gather and enjoy.

They are poke you in the eye sights as one travels.

The fruiting bodies are easily seen and well described in the publication below, as are many and with the information provided allow confident eating.

Christopher J. Sharpe "Chris Sharpe" reviewer, like myself bought Phillips' pioneering "Mushrooms and Other Fungi of Great Britain and Europe" when it came out in the early 1980s for identifying British fungi. At the time it was revolutionary in the use of photographs that allowed the author to depict mushrooms much more accurately than the paintings of earlier guides. Until recently, it was still one of the top field guides to this region (also check Courtecuisse & Duhem, and Jordan [ISBN 0002200252]). I still use this volume a lot for identifying American fungi, both in the tropics and northward. Although I have over 200 field guides of different sorts on my shelves this remains one of my all time favourites.
This current book, Mushrooms (ISBN 0330442376), supersedes the older Phillips guide. It follows the format of the original book quite closely, but is now slightly smaller to make it more of a field guide - about the same size as Skinner's "Moths of the British Isles" (ISBN 0670803545) and, although still won't fit into a pocket, it is much more manageable than the older A4-sized book. There are 1,250 photographs, all of the excellent quality one associates with the author. Some 200 extra species are treated. Taxonomy and text has been brought up to date and into line with the standard taxonomy and nomenclature of lists published by the British Mycological Society.
If you're interested in fungi, don't hesitate - this book must be on your shelves. When you consider how much work went into this project, this represents tremendous value for money.Mushrooms