Collins Mushroom Miscellany. Patrick Harding

      Autumn: oil on canvas (1573) by Giuseppe Arcimboldo

      {Lauros/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library (BAL)}

Dedication

      I dedicate this book to Chloe, my ancient Jack Russell. Much of the book was planned during our daily walks together. I am also indebted to my nieces Charlotte and Sarah for their valuable comments and corrections at the manuscript stage. Finally thanks to my wife Jean and daughter Bryony for putting up with me while I was writing the book and good luck to my son Martin who sensibly moved out before I started.

       Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Dedication

1 No Ceps Please, We’re British

2 Mushrooms or Toadstools?

3 The Fifth Kingdom

4 How Many Are there?

5 Fungi, Folders and Files

6 The Shock of the New

7 Climate Change

8 The Names they are a-Changing

9 Where do Fungi Live?

10 Getting to the Root of the Matter

       11 Mushrooms and Woodchips

       12 Of Rings and things

       13 How Old is a Mushroom?

       14 Big is Beautiful

       15 Mushroom Cultivation

       16 Cultivating and Collecting Exotics

       17 Truffles

       18 Of Ballerinas and Ancient Oaks

       19 A Code of Conduct for Mushroom Hunters

       20 Fungi that Glow in the Dark

       21 A Plague Upon your House

       22 Not So Sweet As It Sounds

       23 Boring Beetles and the Elm Decline

       24 A Fungal Flasher

       25 A Word in your Ear

       26 Tippler’s Bane

       27 Crockery on the Beach

       28 All in the Name

       29 St Anthony’s Fire

       30 Mushroom Magic

       31 A Toadstool is Spotted

       32 Fungi on the Hoof

       33 Love It or Hate It

       34 Mycelial Meals

       35 Medicinal Moulds

       36 M.C.C.

       37 Boletes to Bunnies

       38 Poetry, Prose, Pop and Pictures

       Keep Reading

       Further Information

       Bibliography

       Index

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

No Ceps Please, We’re British

      Boletus edulis (early 19th century) by Paul Louis Oudart

      (Archives Charmet/BAL)

      In the autumn of 1981 I taught my first residential weekend course on Mushrooms and Toadstools. On the Friday evening the small group of participants joined me for a preprandial drink. It was not long before I discovered that each of them had a similar tale to tell. The stories all included accounts of the jaw-dropping response of family and colleagues when told of the reason for their weekend away. In those days very few shops stocked anything other than white cultivated mushrooms which were usually neatly displayed in blue cardboard punnets. Field and other ‘wild’ mushrooms were