Here is a list of some of my go to references for mushroom identification. I prefer books and highly recommend having these around if you are getting into foraging.
- David Aurora’s Mushrooms Demystified-not edibility focused or area specific, but completely comprehensive identification information
- Mushroom of the Southeast by Todd F. Elliott & Steven L. Stephenson
- Mushrooms of the Southeastern US and/or Mushrooms of the Gulf Coast States, by Alan Bessette and a bunch of other people
There are, of course, many many more amazing books on this subject, but surprisingly few focusing on the deep south. I have been a big fan of Gary Lincoff ever since going on a forage with him during the Telluride Mushroom Festival and I love his book, The Complete Mushroom Hunter, and highly recommend it, but it is not really written for this area. Many of the mushrooms he focuses on we would have to travel to find, but there is still loads of relevant information. The same goes for Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America: A Field-To-Kitchen Guide by Alan Bessette & David Fischer. We, alas, do not get morels, porcinis, or any of those giant beautiful boletes that our more northern mushroom enthusiasts delight in, but we do enjoy year round mushrooms and an extremely wide variety.
As per information on the internet… anyone can put anything out there, this website included. A lot more editing and fact checking goes into having a book published. Certainly this is a dream of many bloggers out there, me included, but why spend hours sifting through questionable students’ notes when you can have the professors own textbook? That being said, I would delight in some peer review and conversation on all the material on this website with anyone interested.