Read our interview with the authors here
Fungi of Temperate Europe is among the most comprehensive mycological guides ever published. Featuring more than 7,000 photographs, this lavish two-volume set treats more than 2,800 species of fungi across the region.
Including agarics, boletes, chanterelles and morels but also more obscure groups such as cyphelloids, cup fungi, pyrenomycetous fungi and hysterioids, this guide takes an unprecedented broad approach at communicating fungal diversity. All species are illustrated with one or more photographs and information on morphology, ecology and distribution within temperate Europe is given. Furthermore, 1,500+ species are discussed as potential look-alikes. The books are divided into 80 "form groups" each starting with an innovative comparison wheel with guiding photos, distinguishing characteristics and drawings of essential microscopic features. Poisonous and edible species are colour coded within the text.
Revealing the world of fungi in all its splendour, Fungi of Temperate Europe is a must-have resource for any amateur or professional mycologist.
Thomas Læssøe is a mycologist and senior researcher at the Natural History Museum of Denmark. He has previously been a senior scientific officer at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and associate professor at the University of Copenhagen. He is the author of several guide books.
Jens H. Petersen is a mycologist, graphic designer, and photographer. He taught mycology at Aarhus University for more than 20 years and is the author of The Kingdom of Fungi (Princeton). Petersen and Læssøe cocreated the online identification tool MycoKey.
"There has been quite a run of mushroom books lately, each outdoing the last in terms of the quality of the illustrations, but this one simply takes your breath away. Everything about Fungi of Temperate Europe is on the grandest scale. [...] The key feature of this work is a means of swift identification to genus, which the authors call the fungal wheel. It, in turn, is based on a method devised by the authors and their colleagues, available online as the MycoKey. With a wheel or two at the start of each new batch of fungi, it is an attractive, illustrative way of getting to the right group quickly, certainly much more quickly than with technical synoptic keys. [...] The text, including the usual introductory section on fungal lives and identification, is, allowing for its international flavour, excellent. But the greatest strength of Fungi of Temperate Europe lies in its illustrations, which, I repeat, are simply glorious. For such a work, the price seems pretty reasonable really."
– Peter Marren, British Wildlife 31(2), December 2019