The 8 Best North American mushroom Field Guides (2023 reviews)

Here, we present guide that manages to win our hearts. It's the national audubon society north american mushroom field guide and it's widely considered as one of all-around great guide you can buy. These audubon books are great and give you lots of information and great pictures. It features bright color photos of almost every mushroom mentioned in the guidebook. It is great for people who know almost nothing about fungi but want to learn. It is VERY informative and the color is like you could pick them right off the page.

This one, like a few, can be carried into the field while the larger, more definitive guides await at home, or in the car. It is designed for total beginners. It is VERY easy to carry while searching for the yummy shrooms you get to harvest. It is a very educational book for general knowledge and visual confirmation of different species of this exotic and mysterious growth.

Why We Like This:

Beautiful photos, relevant information, and logical layout
A must have for anyone serious about mushrooms
Good quality, easy to search and go through
Great resource for new shroom hunters

Best For foraging In New England: Teresa Marrone North American mushroom Field Guide

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The teresa marrone north american mushroom field guide should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. It is the perfect guidebook for someone looking to start identifying mushrooms in their area. It has nice, durable pages and lots of excellent colour photos. The information is accessible to beginners but useful for even experienced mushroom seekers. It is about the size of two decks of playing cards laid side-by-side. The categories for each page are excellent too, and the'similar-looking species' section is absolutely critical for eliminating possible look-alikes.

The information is accessible without being dumbed down too much, and there is a lot of good information about mushrooms in general to help you in identifying the species that you find. The color pictures are excellent at helping to cut through some of that'mushroom blindness' people experience when they first start thinking about looking for mushrooms.

Why We Like This:

Great field guide for beginners and experienced foragers
Great pocket field box for quick id
A must have for anyone foraging in new england area
Easy to use and pocket size

Best For budding mushroom enthusiast: Lincoff North American mushroom Field Guide

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If you often find yourself scrambling for appropriate and satisfactory guide, lincoff north american mushroom field guide should be your first option for buying. The mushroom feast began an awakening love affair with all kinds of mushrooms cooked and used in all kinds of ways. It takes the time to delve into each mushroom it covers, and passengers the information in a way that makes it easy to find what you are looking for. The complete mushroom hunter revised has beautiful full color photos, a wealth of information on various aspects of mushrooms, and useful details on hunting, collecting, and preparing mushrooms, along with mushroom lore from around the world, and incredible helpful tips.

The common cultivated mushroom is something that is, essentially, a condiment. It is also light-weight and flexible to, yes, take with you on your foraging. If you are able to memorize the attributes of each species of mushroom, this book may be helpful for you. There is even a recipe section at the back of the book. It provides sections on cooking and cultivating as well. If you are thinking this book will prevent you from dying from eating ones that you find and then eat, well, maybe not so much.

Why We Like This:

Great beginner book and gets you started right away
Compréhensive overview and packed with great photos and info
Very useful for identifying edible fungus
Great book for anyone interested in mushrooms & mushrooming

Best For survival training: Samuel Thayer North American mushroom Field Guide

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Next on the list, we've got yet another guide that manages to win our hearts. It's the samuel thayer north american mushroom field guide and it's widely considered as guide that has the most suitable features. Traditional field guides include hundreds of species of plants with far too little detail to identify with the confidence needed to actually eat them. This is an amazing book that will thrill anyone who spends time out in the woods. It covers an amazing amount of plant types, with lots of pix taken at the proper harvest time. It also emphasizes learning the terms used and provides their uses and definitions in the glossary. It includes Thayer’s philosophy which has grown up around the careful sowing, harvesting, and storing/preparing wild foods.

This is a very detailed book that will thrill anyone who spends time out in the woods. It is a nice beginner book for foraging. This is a guide to identifying those plants from this book for eating, harvesting them at the proper time, and preparing them in ways that work.

Why We Like This:

Good basic addition to the preppers library
High quality images and explanation, and the writer has a healthy sense of humor
Nutritional value along with some basic recipes accompanies each of the plants thayer details

Best picture: Katie Letcher Lyle North American mushroom Field Guide

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The katie letcher lyle north american mushroom field guide's superior materials makes sure that it ages well with use. Wherever foraging takes you, this is a handy [guide] to include in a daypack. It’s good if you’re wanting to make like, real food. It comes with it in hand, you will never take another hike without casting your eyes about with dinner in mind. It even has recipes for each plant. It’s great for the wild-food gourmand.

Why We Like This:

Pictures and recipes good for any occasion
Great pictures, easy to read, nice layout
Lots of useful recipes and different types of edible plants

Best For edibles: Orson Miller North American mushroom Field Guide

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If you're serious about hunting fungi for the table this book is a must have. Though it contains only 180 species of mushrooms across North America, it is still a great field guide for the beginner. They can provide a unique perspective about the edibility and habitat of mushrooms identified through the Arora books. The falcon guide basically forces you to learn scientific names and terminology which is important to avoid confusion and possibly risky mistakes.

This book is quite comprehensive dealing with mushrooms. It is very important that you read everything so you can properly identify mushrooms, especially if you intend to eat them. There is a high reliance on keys, but keys only apply to the species in the guidebook, which is probably less than 20% of the reasonably common species at any particular location—that’s true of any guidebook. This mushroom guide could use better photographs but it is still the best one out there for hunters and identification.

Why We Like This:

Easy to navigate and make identifications
Good investment for long term

Best Book: Matt Trappe North American mushroom Field Guide

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We know from years of feedback from readers, customers and amazon sellers, what most people want in a convenient and appropriate guide. The matt trappe north american mushroom field guide is exactly that - it's a simple guide that hits all the right notes. If you think you'd be interested in digging up some truffles, this is an absolutely invaluable little book for helping you to figure out what you've got on your hands. It includes more than 80 photographs of rare and hard-to-find truffle species. These include photographs, of course, and it's amazing to discover the vast range of colors, patterns, shapes, sizes, etc. It features flavor profiles, delectability index, and culinary tips for each species.

It is truly a wonderful book to identify fungi. The photos are wonderful and descripions are full and informative.

Why We Like This:

Fits in your pocket and a great companion to mycologists in search of truffles
Handy book to carry in the hunting grounds
Good investment for long term

Best For mycologists: Mike Davis North American mushroom Field Guide

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We would, of course, be remiss if we didn't mention mike davis north american mushroom field guide for regular usage. It is a wonderful addition to the mycological literature for both professionals and amateur mycophiles. This guide, as well as most other guides, uses spore color as one of the first steps toward identification. It provides the fungus with carbohydrates, amino acids, and vitamins, which may be the fungus's sole food supply. It protects the cap against breaking as it pushes upward through the soil.

It’s enormous and not practical to carry in a jacket pocket. The cap must be moist to detect a viscid surface, so if a fruiting body is dry, you may need to rub water on it. It has features for ease of identification. It is best to use fresh specimens, because aging specimens often lose odors or develop odors of decay.

Why We Like This:

Delivers what they promise
Good investment for long term