Book excerpt: “The lurid photographs and enticing, offhandedly witty descriptions make the reader want to go out collecting specimens right away."—Popular Science From morels to chanterelles, toadstools to truffles, fungi have been a source of fascination since the earliest hunter-gatherers first foraged for them. Today there are few, if any, places on Earth where fungi have not found themselves a home—their habitats span the poles and the tropics, mountaintops and backyards. Packed with facts and photos, this book introduces you to fungus in many forms—some parasitic, some poisonous, some hallucinogenic and some with healing properties that can be tapped for pharmaceutical products. Then of course, there are the delicious mushrooms that are prized by epicureans and gourmands worldwide. Each species here is reproduced at its actual size, in full color, and accompanied by a scientific explanation of its distribution, habitat, association, abundance, growth form, spore color, and edibility. With information on the characteristics, locations, distinguishing features, and occasionally bizarre habits of these fungi, you’ll find in this book the common and the conspicuous, the unfamiliar and the odd—including a fungal predator, for instance, that hunts its prey with lassos, and several that set traps, including one that entices sows by releasing the pheromones of a wild boar. “How dazzling is the world of mushrooms? The fan-shaped cinnabar oysterling looks like something you would find undersea. The violet webcap is vibrant. These are among the more than 600 fungi described and illustrated in this scholarly and beautiful book.”—TheNew York Times “Anyone with an appreciation of the beauty of nature will enjoy.”—Grand Forks Herald