U.S. NTFP Species Database


Additional Information for Fungi Harvested
For Food or Flavoring


About the Data
Books and Articles
Web sites
Scientific Names
Common Names
Language Codes
Taxonomy
State Range and Distribution


About the data

There exists many more edible species of mushrooms in the United States than those listed in this database.  We have provided information for forest species that we know are harvested and sold, or that are likely to be harvested and sold because they resemble choice edible species (for instance, Leccinum species that resemble King Boletes in stature and light-colored pores).

We have excluded species that have been commercially harvested in the past, but are now considered dangerous to eat.  These include the early morels (Verpa species), the false morels (Gyromitra species) and man-on-horseback (Tricholoma flavovirens).  We have also excluded edible Amanita species due to the danger of misidentification and consumption of poisonous or deadly species.  The “Lobster mushroom” is actually two fungi in one.  Hypomyces lactiflorum parasitizes and completely encases other mushrooms. There is always a risk that Hypomyces is colonizing a poisonous mushroom, but on the west coast it almost always colonizes the edible Russula brevipes and is widely collected and sold.  Our distribution information includes only western habitats as there is a greater risk of Hypomyces colonizing inedible mushrooms in the eastern United States.  If you harvest and sell the Lobster mushroom, you should only collect from areas where non-infected specimens are available for identification.  Even this approach does not provide certainty of the parasitized mushroom’s identity as mushroom species often fruit in intermixed patterns.

For more information on edible mushroom species, see the Books and Articles section immediately below, especially Fischer and Bessette 1992.


Books and Articles

Arora,D. 1986. Mushrooms demystified. Second edition. Berkeley, CA:Ten Speed Press.959 p.

Arora, D. 1991. All that the rain promises and more... A hip pocket guide to western mushrooms. Berkeley, CA:Ten Speed Press. 263 p.

Alan E. Bessette, William C. Roody, and Arleen R. B 2000.North American boletes : a color guide to the fleshy pored mushrooms /Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press

Bandoni, R.J.; Szczawinski, A.F. 1976. Guide to common mushrooms of British Columbia. Handbook No. 24.  Victoria, Canada: British Columbia Provincial Museum. 242 p.

Barron, G. 1999. Mushrooms of Ontario and Eastern Canada. Lone Pine Field Guide. Edmonton, Alberta: Lone Pine Publishing. 336 p.

Bessette, A.; Sundberg, W. 1987.    Mushrooms: a quick reference guide to mushrooms of North America. Macmillan Field Guide Series. New York, NY: Collier Books.170 p.

Bessette, A.E.; Bessette, A.R.; Fischer, D.W. 1997.  Mushrooms of northeastern North America. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. 582 p.

Biek, D. 1984. Mushrooms of northern California. Redding, CA: Spore Prints. 302 p.

Bigelow, Howard E. 1974. The mushroom pocket field guide  Imprint New York, Macmillan

Courtenay, B.; Burdsall, H.H. Jr. 1982. A field guide to mushrooms and their relatives. New York, NY: Van Norstrand Reinhold. 144 p.

Desjardin, D. E. Hemmes, D. E. 2002. Mushrooms of Hawaii: An Identification Guide. Berkeley, CA:Ten Speed Press 212 p.

Evenson, V.S. 1997. Mushrooms of Colorado and the southern Rocky Mountains. Denver Botanic Gardens & Denver Museum of Natural History. Englewood, CO: Westcliffe Publishers. 207 p.

Fischer, D.W.; Bessette, A.E. 1992. Edible wild mushrooms of North America: a field-to-kitchen guide. Austin, TX: University of Austin Press. 254 p.

Glick, P.G. 1979. The mushroom trail guide. New York, NY:Holt Rinehart Winston. 247 p.

Groves, J. W.; [Addendum by Redhead, S. A.]. 1979. Edible and poisonous mushrooms of Canada. Publication 1112. Ottawa, ON: Research Branch, Agriculture Canada.  326 p.

Hosford, D.; Pilz, D.; Molina, R.; Amaranthus, M. 1997.Ecology and Management of the Commercially Harvested American Matsutake Mushroom.  Gen. Tech. Rep.PNW-GTR-412. Portland, OR: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 68 p.

Huffman, D.M.; Tiffany, L.H., Knaphus, G. 1989. Mushrooms& other fungi of the mid continental United States. Ames, IO: Iowa State University Press.  326p.

Kibby, G. 1992. American nature guides. Mushrooms and other fungi. New York: Smithmark Publishing. 192 p.

Lincoff, G.H. 1981. The Audubon Society field guide to North American mushrooms. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 926 p.

McKenny, M.; Stuntz D.E.; Ammirati, J.F. 1987. The new savory wild mushroom. Seattle: University of Washington Press. 249 p.

McKnight, K.H.; McKnight, V.B. 1987. Peterson field guide.  A field guide to mushrooms. North America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 429 p.

Miller, O.K. Jr. 1978. Mushrooms of North America. New York: E. P. Dutton. 360 p.

Molina, R.; O'Dell, T.; Luoma, D.; [and others] 1993.Biology, ecology and social aspects of wild edible mushrooms in the forests of the Pacific Northwest: a preface to managing commercial harvest. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-309. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 42 p.

Orr, R.T.; Orr, D.B. 1979. Mushrooms of western North America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. 293 p.

Phillips, R. 1991. Mushrooms of North America. Boston, MD: Little, Brown and Co. 319 p.


 

Web sites

North American Mycological Societies   http://www.mykoweb.com/na_mycos.html

Mushroom links (TheWWW Virtual Library: Mycology by Kathie Hodge)   http://www.keil.ukans.edu/%7Efungi/

MykoWeb by Micheal Wood   http://www.mykoweb.com


Scientific Names

With the recent application of molecular techniques of genetic analysis, the taxonomic classification of many fungi are undergoing extensive revision.  Therefore many scientific (Latin) names are in the process of being modified, altered, or reassigned.  For our purposes, we consulted two online authorities for fungal names (listed below) and included many previously accepted names in our database.  If you are uncertain about the most widely accepted and current name for a species, we suggest you also consult these databases as they are updated periodically.  These sources are not in complete agreement because they are operated by different individuals and institutions, but each cooperates extensively with taxonomic experts around the world.

The CABI Bioscience International Mycological Institute and the Fungal Biodiversity Center of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences host the web based Index Fungorum, also known as the “Funindex.”  It is a searchable database of all fungal names globally and also lists higher level taxonomic classifications and prior synonyms for each species.

Information about the database can be found at:   http://www.indexfungorum.org/  and the database can be searched at: http://www.indexfungorum.org/Names/NAMES.ASP

Within the United States, the fungal database hosted by United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), Systematic Botany and Mycology Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland is the most definitive source of fungal names.  Their databases allow a variety of searches including nomenclature, host tree species, collection locations, bibliographic information, and synonyms.  It does not give information about taxonomic classification or rank above genus level.  Their data is extensive for saprobic (decay) and parasitic fungi, but lack most ectomycorrhizal mushrooms.

The USDA-ARS home page is: http://nt.ars-grin.gov/index.htm

And the databases may be searched at:   http://nt.ars-grin.gov/fungaldatabases/all/GenericSelectionFrame.cfm


Common names

The North American Mycological Association (NAMA) is undertaking a project to compile common names for American fungi. You can read about it in their newsletter or contact the association.

Commission on Common Mushroom Names The Mycophile 41:6, Nov/Dec 2000  http://www.namyco.org/publish/pub2000.htm

Multilingual Multiscript Plant Name Database  (Very complete, but slow)
http://gmr.landfood.unimelb.edu.au/Plantnames/Sorting/search.html

Foreign names of mushrooms from the cookbook page of the Mycological Society of San Francisco  (Some selected species, non-English names) http://www.mssf.org/cookbook/foreign.html

Japanese mushroom names http://gmr.landfood.unimelb.edu.au/Plantnames/Sorting/Fungi_Japindex_kat1.html

Dutch mushroom names, Netherland's Mycological Society
http://www.bk.tudelft.nl/users/kap/internet/index2.html

Société Mycologique deFrance, Les noms français  (French names for species in selected genera)  http://www.mycofrance.org/

Pilz Galerie
(German mushroom names and photos) 
http://www.pilzepilze.de/piga/


Language Codes

International Organization for StandardizationISO 639. Code for the representation of the names of languages.  http://xml.coverpages.org/iso639a.html


Taxonomy

Two groups of edible mushrooms presented difficult choices for database entries. Chanterelles are undergoing taxonomic revisions and morel species are poorly defined and delineated. 

The chanterelle names and species in this database derive from a not-yet-published report that should be available from the USDA Forest Service in 2003 or 2004. The taxonomic determinations were provided by Lorelei Norvell (and Eric Danell), but any errors in transcribing the information into this database are the responsibility of David Pilz. 

The citation for this publication will be:  Pilz, David; Norvell, Lorelei; Danell, Eric; Molina, Randy.  (In Press) Ecology and management of commercially harvested chanterelle mushrooms. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-XXX. Portland, OR: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. XXX pp.

Morel taxonomy is simply a jumble.  Many previous names are incorrect or not published appropriately. Both scientific names and common names overlap among species and many likely species have yet to be described. Fortunately, all true morels (in the genus Morchella) are choice edibles and commercially harvested throughout the United States.


State Range and Distributions

The states where each fungus in this database are listed as occurring must be considered only approximations in many cases.  Much of this information was derived from field guides that give vague information such as “widely distributed”, “eastern United States”, “with pines”, etc.  Multiple sources were checked for distribution information, but we did not examine herbarium records for actual collection information.  Often, when a state is listed, appropriate habitat for the mushroom might occur in only a small portion of the state. For instance, high elevations in the southern Appalachian Mountains of Georgia for species more commonly found in northern states, or mushrooms associated with pines or oaks in corners or small areas of the prairie states.

The best way to determine if a particular fungus occurs in your area is to consult a local field guide or ask members of a local mushroom club or mycological society.  Some local field guides are listed under the Books and Articles section above, and a list of North American Mycological Societies may be found on the web at: http://www.mykoweb.com/na_mycos.html
 

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