United States
£ GBP
Originally published in 1993, A Guide to Kansas Mushrooms went out of print in 2017. Original author Richard Kay suggested his wife, Sherry Kay, could assume the undertaking of revising the book, collaborating with him and working as a consultant. After Richard's death in 2018, Sherry later added two coauthors, Benjamin Sikes and Caleb Morse, to complete the task.
Kay, Sikes, and Morse have revised this new edition to account for the variety of ways mycology has changed in the last twenty-five years while holding to its original purpose as a guide for active mushroomers. Primarily, A New Guide to Kansas Mushrooms highlights the upheaval in taxonomy caused by advances in molecular genetics: an estimated 25 per cent of fungal names included in the original guide have changed since 1993. Second, the list of mushrooms found in Kansas has expanded and the new edition will add 50 species to the 150 described in the original guide. All anthology entries have been updated to reflect these changes in the field, and the essays have also been edited, reduced, or expanded to include updated information as well as brand-new material. The outdated genus-level classification of fungi has been replaced by two cladograms – diagrams that illustrate how organisms branch off from their last common ancestors.
This revised edition provides a wealth of new material on Kansas mushrooms that will aid and fascinate both newbies and seasoned mycophiles and includes information on online resources and notes on how to grow mushrooms in Kansas. While the book fully treats 200 species, readers will be able to identify 320 different macrofungi using the keys and discussions. Additionally, the book introduces readers to fascinating, common slime moulds (myxomycetes). A New Guide to Kansas Mushrooms incorporates new understanding of fungal taxonomy that has been largely unearthed by genetic tools over the past three decades, highlights key taxa, and includes a life list of the more than 1,200 species now catalogued from Kansas – nearly twice the number known at the time of the first edition.
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Read This First!
- How to Identify a Mushroom, Sherry Kay and Ben Sikes
- The Edibility Issue: Poisons and Individual Reactions, Dean Abel
An Anthology of Kansas Mushrooms
- How to Use the Keys
- Key to Orders
- Phylum Basidiomycota
- Conventional Order Agaricales: Some of the Gilled Mushrooms
- Key to Families
- Family Hygropharaceae
- Families Marasmiaceae, Mycenaceae, and Omphalotaceae
- Family Physalacriaceae
- Families Tricholomataceae and some Former Tricholomataceae: Hydnangiaceae and Lyophyllaceae, Phyllotopsidaceae, Pleurotaceae, and Schizophyllaceae
- Families Bolbitiaceae, Entolomataceae, and Pluteaceau
- Families Cortinariaceae, Crepidotaceae, and Inocybaceae
- Famies Hymenagastraceae, Psathyrellaceae, and Strophariaceae
- Family Agaricaceae
- Conventional Order Russulales
- Family Russulaceae
- Conventional Order Boletales
- Orders Hymenochaetales, Polyporales, and some anamolous members of Agaricales and Russulales, mostly with pored hymenia but some with diverse hymenial forms
- Orders Cantharellales, Gomphales, and Thelephorales and some atypical members of other orders: Chanterells, corals, and tooth mushrooms
- Order Tremellales and other jellies
- Order Phallales: Stinkhorns
- Conventional Class Gasteromycetes: Gasteroid fungi
- Phylum Ascomycota
- Orders Helotiales, Leotiales, Pezizales, and Phacidiales: Mostly cup fungi
- Orders Boliniales, Hypocreales, and Xylariales
- Myxomycetes, or Mycetozoa: The slime molds
More on Mushrooms
- Sex Lies, and the Truth about Mushrooms, Dean Abel, Sherry Kay, and Ben Sikes
- Kansas Habitats: Where to Find Mushrooms, Ben Sikes and Bruce Horn
- Forays: A Basic Kit and Some Risks, Sherry Kay
- Online Resources for Identifying Mushrooms, Ben Sikes
- Mushrooms in the Kitchen, Sherry Kay
- Growing Mushrooms in Kansas, Terry Shistar
- Mycological Latin, Richard Kay
- Mycology in Kansas: A Brief History, Richard Kay
- A Life List for the Kansas Mycophile, Sherry Kay
- Appendix A: Relationships among the Species of Phylum Basidiomycota
- Appendix B: Relationships among the Species of Phylum Ascomycota
- Glossary
- Picture Credits
- Index
Sherry Kay is a field mycologist in Lawrence, Kansas. She has over forty years of experience foraging and researching and served as a former president of the Kaw Valley Mycological Society. Benjamin Sikes is an associate professor and scientist of microbial ecology at the University of Kansas. Caleb Morse is the collection manager for the Division of Botany at the University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute.
