9780868407425
AM Young
2013
Paperback
240 pages
14.8cm x 21.3cm
"Fungi are not plants, but they do have a few plant characteristics - they stay in one place, and appear to grow like a very fast maturing plant, but they have little more in common." Some people are surprised to learn that not only do the higher fungi play an essential role in Australian bushland ecology but that without them, life on earth as we know it would rapidly cease. Mushrooms and toadstools are the silent and essential partners in woodlands and forests providing benificial partnerships without which our gum trees and related plants could not survive. The macrofungi are also critical food resources for many of our native mammals, reptiles and invertebrates, and are equally important as recyclers of plant material in the forests.
Fungi field guides are not for identifying which fungi are edible and which are poisonous. This can be difficult from pictures in a book and is best left to experts to identify them 'in the flesh'.
