In the Company of Mushrooms
Subtitle: A Biologist's Tale
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: April 15, 1997
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 290
ISBN-13: 9780674445543
Subjects: Microbiology (non-medical); Mycology, fungi (non-medical); Reference works; Nature / Field Guide Books; Fungi; Science; Nature; Nature/Ecology; General; Mushrooms; Nature / Mushrooms; Life Sciences - Botany; Mushrooms, Edible
First sentence: In 1991 the remains of a Stone Age man were found in the Tyrolean Alps.
Description: In a style at once learned and quirky, personal and commanding, Elio Schaechter imparts the fascinating minutiae and the weighty implications of his subject - a primarily microscopic life form that nonetheless accounts for up to two tons of matter for every human on the planet. He shows us how fungi, the great decomposers, recycle most of the world's vegetable matter - from a blade of grass to a strapping tree - and thus prevent us from sinking under ever-accumulating masses of decaying matter.

With the same expertise and contagious enthusiasm that he brings to the biology of mushrooms, Schaechter conveys the allure of the mushroom hunt. Drawing on his own experience as well as that of seasoned pickers and amateur mycologists, he explains when and where to find mushrooms, how they are cultivated, and how they are used in various cultures. From the delectable to the merely tolerable, from the hallucinogenic to the deadly, a wide variety of mushrooms are covered in this spirited presentation.