Language: Bilingual in English and Polish
About 400 genera and 2,650 species known in Poland are included in this book. Some of them are invalid according to the ICBN. Some of the taxa are uncertainly classified, and others are mistakenly recorded from Poland. The true number of Basidiomycete taxa known from Poland is about 2,550.
Over 2,100 species of agaricoid and boletoid fungi (Moser 1983) and about 2,000 species of aphyllophoroid, gasteromycetoid, tremelloid, auricularoid, dacryomycetoid and tulasnelloid fungi (Julich 1984) are known in Europe. Most certainly this number is still not inclusive, as in fact more fungi occur in Europe. In the former German Federal Republic, 3,515 species Basidiomycetes (Krieglsteiner 1991) were known through 1991, about a thousand more than those known in Poland in 2003. Because Poland and the western part of Germany are comparable in terms of area, climate and nature preservation, the same number of species might be expected to grow in Poland.
The genera and species are alphabetized. Presently accepted Latin names and the most important synonyms are given for each taxon. The affiliations to families and orders and the number of species known in Poland are given for the genera. The most important Polish names are given. The habitats in which the fungi grow, plant community, substratum, mode of nutrition and fructification time are characterized.
For threatened species, the threat categories assigned in Poland and other European countries are given from the literature (red books, red lists).