Book Review
Nordic Macromycetes. Vol. 1. Ascomycetes.
Lisa Hansen and Henning Knudsen, eds.
Nordsvamp, Copenhagen, 2000. 309 pages, paper, approx. $90.
In an era of mushroom guides lavishly illustrated with color photographs or paintings this book is pure black and white without a single photograph. Nonetheless, this volume, like the others in the series, is an important contribution to the mycological literature. Approximately 1000 taxa of non-lichenized ascomycetes are treated, of which approximately 800 are discomycetes (cup-fungi and their relatives) and 200 pyrenomycetes (whose fruiting bodies are not based on the cup-fungus model). As indicated in the title, the emphasis is on fungi with fruiting bodies large enough to be found easily. Mushroom hunters who take an interest in ascomycetes will be cheered to see that the discomycetes (inoperculate cup-fungi in the Leotiales and operculate cup-fungi and their relatives - morels, truffles, and related cup-fungi - in the Pezizales) are well-represented in this volume. Nearly 70% of the pages comprising the heart of the book (keys and short descriptions) is devoted to these fungi. Eleven other orders are dealt with in varying levels of detail in the remaining pages. The keys include a mixture of macroscopic and microscopic characters and recourse to microscopic characters is mandatory in many cases.
When I first paged through my copy and found the drawings of ascospores I just sat there and gloried in them, especially those of selected Pezizales prepared by Henry Dissing. In addition, the book offers the serious student of the Ascomycota a wealth of information. Because this is the first volume in the three-volume series, even though it was the last to be issued, it contains some introductory material for the entire series. Tevo Ahti's concise summary of the basics of fungal nomenclature is well worth reading by anyone who seeks a basic understanding of the subject and the importance of citing the names of the author of a taxon. The discussion of the "Vegetation zones and mycogeography of the area" by Henning Knudsen & Svengunnar Ryman includes a fascinating section on fungi specific to, or primarily, found in, the different biogeographic areas they discuss. However, I found mention of just over a half-dozen ascomycetes in this section.
All three volumes follow the same format with sections on "How to use the flora," a discussion of vegetation zones and maps of the area covered (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland), abbreviations used in the text to refer to published color illustrations, a glossary of terms appropriate to the volume, an introduction to the group covered in the volume, keys to included taxa, extensive lists of references, figures, indices to vernacular names for the genera in Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish followed by the index to Latin names. The table of contents doubles as an outline of the classification. Those who have not been following changes in the classification of the Ascomycota are in for a surprise when they examine the classification. The inside of the back cover contains a handy list of the included orders and their families and the page number where each section starts.
Thomas Laessoe's "Introduction to the Ascomycetes" includes discussions of the selection criteria for what taxa were included, some information of the different kinds of fruiting bodies characteristic of these fungi, notes on the ecology of the ascomycetes, and notes on the included orders. The references at the end of this section and in the "List of references" later in the book provide a basic bibliography for anyone wishing to pursue further studies on these fungi. The glossary will likely prove too brief for many users; I encountered a number of terms in the text that are not likely to be familiar even to many graduate-student level mycology students.
The keys to families and genera reflect some of the recent work on molecular phylogeny of the Pezizales and the thoughts of some of the leaders in this field of mycology. Many of the included species in Vol. 1 of Nordic Macromycetes are either known from North America or might yet be found here. A number of new genera have been described since the publication of Richard Korf's chapter on "Discomycetes and Tuberales" in The Fungi: Vol. I VA. The Ascomycetes published in 1973. The keys to genera in this volume include those new genera, and many new species, described from the Nordic countries in the intervening time and provide users with a new way to try to figure out what "little orange cup" they have found. Students of the larger North American ascomycetes have a good chance of identifying their finds at least to genus and they may be able to determine the species as well. However, North Americans may be a bit startled at some of the information about species that occur in both regions. For example, Caloscypha fulgens and Sarcosphaera coronaria are both described as fruiting on calcareous soils but collectors in western North America find both species commonly on granitic and volcanic soils.
Users and specialists may not agree in all cases with the classification or placement of various species or genera, but given the enormity of the task, I salute those authors and editors who brought this project to completion. Henning Knudsen states in the preface that the volumes in this series will be revised regularly. Thus users should take note of what they like and what they find confusing in the book and share their kudos and criticisms with the editorial committee. It will be interesting to follow the evolution of all the volumes in this series. This volume is a welcome addition to the collection of reference works for anyone seriously interested in the Pezizales of the North Temperate to Boreal regions.
— Review by Nancy S. Weber, Ph.D., Corvallis, OR
— The Mycophile 42:6, Nov/Dec 2001