Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast

A comprehensive and user-friendly field guide for identifying the many mushrooms of the northern California coast, from Monterey County to the Oregon border.

Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast will help beginning and experienced mushroom hunters alike to find and identify mushrooms, from common to rare, delicious to deadly, and interesting to beautiful. This user-friendly reference covers coastal California from Monterey County to the Oregon border with full treatments of more than 750 species, and references to hundreds more. With tips on mushroom collecting, descriptions of specific habitats and biozones, updated taxonomy, and outstanding photography, this guide is far and away the most modern and comprehensive treatment of mushrooms in the region. Each species profile pairs a photograph with an in-depth description, as well as notes on ecology, edibility, toxicity, and look-alike species. Written by mushroom identification experts and supported by extensive field work, Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast is an indispensable guide for anyone curious about fungi.Introduction 7

What Are Mushrooms? 8

Humans and Ecology of Fungi 9

Fungi 10

The Redwood Coast 11

Trees of the Redwood Coast 12

Finding Mushrooms 16

Collecting Mushrooms 16

Identifying Mushrooms 16

Making Spore Prints 17

Tools of the Trade 17

Making Collections 17

Photographing Mushrooms 18

Collecting for the Table 18

Taxonomy and Cladistics 19

How to Read the Species Descriptions 20

A General Format of the Species Descriptions 20

Pictorial Key to the Major Sections 22

THE DESCRIPTIONS: 

1 • Chanterelles and Gomphoids 29

2 • Amanita 38

3 • Lepiota and Allies 60

4 • Agaricus and Melanophyllum 79

5 • Dark-Spored Mushrooms 98

6 • Brown-Spored Decomposers 131

7 • Mycorrhizal Brown-Spored Mushrooms 154

8 • Cortinarius 172

9 • Entoloma and Allies 209

10 • Pluteus and Allies 226

11 • Russula and Lactarius 233

12 • Waxy Caps 275

13 • The White-Spored Multitude 302

14 • Pleurotoid Mushrooms 403

15 • Gilled Bolete Relatives 416

16 • Boletes 426

17 • Polypores and Allies 464

18 • Crust Fungi 489

19 • Tooth Fungi 496

20 • Coral and Club Mushrooms 511

21 • Puffballs, Earthballs, Earthstars, Stinkhorns, and Bird’s Nests 533

22 • Truffles 548

23 • Jelly Fungi 554

24 • Morels, False Morels, and Elfin Saddles 558

25 • Cup Fungi 565Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast sets the standard for all future efforts. The coverage is all one could ask for, the text is clear and helpful, and the photographs are a joy to see.
—GARY LINCOFF, author of The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms

Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast is at a whole new level for regional mushroom guides. It is certainly a must-own for anyone that’s serious about mushroom identification in California.
—TOM BRUNS, professor of plant and micrbial biology at the University of California, Berkeley

This is a wonderful and comprehensive guide to the intriguing mushrooms of coastal northern California. Well-researched, beautifully illustrated, and written with insight and humor!
—ELSE C. VELLINGA, editor of Flora Agaricina Neerlandica 

This book sets a new standard for comprehensive regional mushroom identification guides. The photographs alone are worth the price of admission.
—DAVID ARORA, author of Mushrooms Demystified 

Accomplished field mycologists/photographers Siegel and Schwarz have made the colorful and fascinating mushrooms of the redwood coast accessible through this indispensable new book.
—DR. STEVEN TRUDELL, author of Mushrooms of the Pacific NorthwestNOAH SIEGEL's field mycology skills are extensive – he has spent two decades seeking, photographing, identifying, and furthering his knowledge about all aspects of macrofungi. He has hunted for mushrooms throughout the United States and Canada, as well as on multiple expeditions to New Zealand and Australia. 
   He is one of the premier mushroom photographers in the nation, having won numerous awards from the North American Mycological Association (NAMA) photography contest. His technique and attention to detail are unrivaled, arising from a philosophy of maximizing utility for identification purposes while maintaining a high degree of aesthetic appeal. 
   His photographs have appeared on the covers and have been featured in articles of multiple issues of FUNGI Magazine and Mushroom the Journal, the primary mushroom enthusiast magazines in the United States, numerous mushroom books, as well as NAMA and other club publications. 
   He is past president of the Monadnock Mushroomers Unlimited, (MMU) a mushroom club based out of Keene, NH, and is an active member of the Humboldt Bay Mycological Society and the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz. 
   Noah travels and lectures extensively across America, following the mushrooms. 


CHRISTIAN SCHWARZ is a naturalist interested in the diversity of living organisms in general, but the seemingly endless forms (whether grotesque, bizarre, or sublime) of fungi in particular stoke his curiosity. He spends most of his time teaching about natural history, collecting and photographing mushrooms, assembling an exhaustive mycoflora for Santa Cruz County (www.scmycoflora.org), and exploring wilderness around the world. He is particularly interested in the role of citizen scientists in the future of ecological and taxonomic research.Introduction 

The rugged edge of the continent upon which Coast Redwoods dwell is fantastically beautiful land. The warm, dry summers and rainy winters that bathe this area’s varied terrain create a great diversity of habitats, which are home to mushrooms and other fungi: a tremendously diverse but often overlooked community of organisms. 

Mushroom identification as a hobby has an obvious end goal: to be able to attach names to organisms and communicate about them reliably and effectively. But pursuing this goal necessarily involves continually honing and developing increased awareness of other fungi, which leads to outcomes more subtle and more profound. You will learn a few mushrooms your first year, and the next year you will learn a few more; then you will have experiences that challenge you to question your own knowledge, as well as some that strengthen it. You will eventually be surprised at how much you know (and how much more you are left wondering about!). More importantly, with every step you take down this road, your world will expand. You will begin to notice slime molds, mosses, lichens, tiny insects, and the various other minute habitats that surround fungi, and you will soon wonder about all of these as well. 

Paired with your persistence, curiosity, and time spent in the woods, this guide will help you become familiar with the names and faces of fungi on the Redwood Coast, and give you a glimpse of what we know about their role in California’s ecosystems. We hope that this book will encourage beginners to dive in to the world of California’s fungi, as well as assist and encourage more experienced identifiers as they push our collective knowledge forward. 

Coast Redwoods are a magnificent and irreplaceable part of our heritage, and we should strive to protect the ecosystems that support them. We hope that this book will serve as a reminder that this coast is also home to a great diversity of fungi. They are rarely given attention in conservation efforts (perhaps due to their intermittent visibility), but fungi are always there. Whether busy on roots, in soil, on moss, or in the heartwood of trees, they are essential to the dynamics of forests.