Customer Reviews
Excellent Reference Book - By: R. Shephard, 05 Dec 2008 
I bought this & Phillips book "Mushrooms". Both books are excellent but the main difference is that Jordan has photographed the fungiin their natural habitat while Phillips are photographed against a plain backdrop. I much prefer the natural photographs as it helpsin identification to see what material & habitat the fungi are growing in. Jordan's book also gives a bit more information on collecting, fungi shapes, colours etc. but this is just a personal choice & others may prefer the Phillips layout. Allin all & excellent reference book for the fungi enthusiasts library. My only complaint is that it is far too big to carryin the field.
Lavishly illustrated guide to 1000 European species - By: Christopher J. Sharpe, 03 Aug 2007 This guide is on a par with the older Roger Phillips "Mushrooms" & very similarin size & format. Unlike Phillips, all photographs have been shotin situ. With so few guides to fungi available, & each covering a particular selection of species, it's best to assemble a good library - & this should be one of the major works. Even though the focus is Britain & Europe, many of the fungi have much wider ranges & this book is invaluable elsewherein the world too (I use it regularlyin temperate & tropical America).
Chris Sharpe, 3 August 2007. ISBN: 0711223793
Simply fantastic - By: Malcolm, 11 Dec 2006 I know nothing about fungi until a few weeks ago when using my macro lens I started filming various types simply as most of the insect life had gone to bed for the winter. To ID the pictures I needed a guide to what I was filming.
I spent a week or so looking through the Amazon listings & reading all the reader's reviews to try & get the best guide I could. (When I say the best I meanin terms of one I could use rather then something that was too basic or so advanced I'd be lost).
With only one review of this book I wasin two minds to get or not, but then decided I would give it a go.
It came today & for the past few hours I have been going through it. The photos are all by natural light where ever possible,....that means a lot when you are trying to match it up with what you have seen or have a picture of. The pictures are also good at showing the conditions they are found in. The text is excellent for each species. At the front there are various chapters on how to ID the fungi, a colour key & a ID key for all the species featuredin the book.
Having purchased various guides on insects, plants & wildlifein the past few months I have to say that I cannot imagine how Michael Jordan could have improved on this excellent guide & encyclopedia. My only wish is he turns his hand at an insect guide next!!! LOL.
Michael clearly loves his subject, & that love is so apparentin this book. A classic guide.
Very good quality & value for money, but difficult to use - By: Chris Of The OT, 04 Nov 2006 
* I am a complete fungi novice - please bare thatin mind when reading this review! *
This fungi encyclopaedia by Michael Jordan is the 2004 revised edition of his highly regarded 1995 original. As a revised edition, you'd expect it to be excellent quality, & so it is; listing more than a thousand species with superb photographs & detailed descriptions.
The first `introductory' sections to this encyclopaedia, ending on p33, offer some very helpful advice on fungi biology & structure; with a `How to use this book' feature - which you'll need to read! - & a reference section with bibliography & glossary. The main encyclopaedia then follows.
If you take advantage of Amazon's excellent `Search Inside' feature, you'll see how Jordan lays out the entries. It's very thorough, with long, impossible to pronounce Latin names (very few have English names), dimensions, detailed descriptions of the cap, gills & stem of the fungi (if it has them), as well as microscopic analysis of the spores & any relevant chemical tests.
Anna & I are, therefore, starting to discover that the task of identifying each fungi accurately is legendarily difficult! This is not helped when names & classification of fungi are continually changing and, authors can apparetnly disagree on both. Also, it appears that fungi are continuing to evolve thus giving rise to frequent new strains.
As a novice, this is supremely difficult to overcome - but it is the nature of the fungal beast, not a fault of this book. However, relevant photographs of all listed fungiin their young, mature & `over-blown' state would be very useful. This is because a mushroom (for instance) that starts out as pink ball, may mature into a white umbrella shape. Unfortunately, this encyclopaedia only has some pictures of fungiin their young and/or old states.
I think Jordan's offering is as good an encyclopaedia as one can expect, & better than many. But the complexities of accurately identifying each species mean that it is always going to be a difficult to use volume. However, it is still top quality, managing to convey the author's passion & it represents superb value for money. Recommended.
