Why would I buy a Field Guide to Mushrooms when it's in German?

On Saturday I wrote about the history behind some of my finds at The Special Store. I'd found some 55 year old church fans, and a 1927 field guide to mushrooms- in German. There were some other finds too, but those were the historical ones.

When I was describing the history behind the church fans, and the old alphabetic number telephone exchanges, the essay got long. I'd decided to write about the German Mushroom field guide later.

Later is now. :)

The German word Fuhrer means 'leader' or 'guide'. Hitler obviously used the word as Leader. The Field Guide uses the word as Guide.

I like old books, and this one is a good old one. The pictures were hand painted and then reproduced in the book. They're gorgeous.

Sydney Living Museums has an entry on botanical illustrations-

Botanical illustration is the art of depicting the form, color, and details of plant species, frequently in watercolor paintings. They must be scientifically accurate but often also have an artistic component and may be printed with a botanical description in book, magazines, and other media or sold as a work of art.

I like botanical illustrations. This is a picture (a bad one with reflection) of a large botanical over my couch. It's the main photo in my living room. As a bonus, it nicely matches the couch.

I have two natural history books, old ones with hand painted plates inside. One is The popular history of the Mollusca; comprising a familiar account of their classification, instincts and habits, and of the growth and distinguishing characters of their shells By Mary Roberts. Printed by London by Reeve and Benham, in 1851. It's 396 pages, with 18 hand painted color plates, like these:

Before photography, artistic drawings were the only way to show people the items they were teaching about. After Darwin's Theory of Species was published, it sparked an interest in the natural world. Explorers, especially from Britain, went out to discover, draw, and bring back samples of flora and fauna of all kinds. Books were written, field guides were published.

Artists were in their heyday, drawing all manner of bugs, animals, plants, trees, birds, and the like. Even today, there is an American Society of Botanical Artists who specialize in detailed drawings and paintings of things that grow.

I also have a Botanicals calendar book from the British Museum I'd bought at a flea market. I use it in crafting.

I have four other field guides. One is for mammals, another is for Atlantic fish, and two are for seashells. I used to have one for birds but I gave it away.  I've also got three encyclopedias of shells:

The field guides are old. Now I have one for mushrooms to add.

I got interested in field guides when my husband and I lived in our camper van and went across country, and when we lived on the sailboat and sailed up and down the eastern seaboard. I wanted to know what I was seeing. When I ceased traveling, I kept the books even though I don't go out much anymore, because they are interesting and pretty books. I love my book collection. It's been added-to over many years, each book carefully selected, and arranged in useful ways on my bookshelves.

So knowing that, now you might understand why I picked up the German Field Guide to Mushrooms. I can use the pages for crafting, I can leaf through and just enjoy the botanicals, and/or I can add it to my collection of field guides. The pages have darkened to brown with age, and are extremely brittle so I have to handle it carefully.

As for the book itself: the title is variably translated as:

Guide for mushroom lovers. The most common edible and poisonous mushrooms; By Michael, Edmund, 1849-1920. Or, Guide for Mushroom Hunters.

This seems to be THE standard for field guides to mushrooms, from what I have researched. His Field Guide was published 4 times according to Mushroom The Journal:

Edmund Michael (1895) Führer für Pilzfreunde: Bd. 1 (Guide for mushroom hunters)
Edmund Michael (1901) Führer für Pilzfreunde: Bd. 2 (Guide for mushroom hunters)
Edmund Michael (1905) Führer für Pilzfreunde: Bd. 3 (Guide for mushroom hunters)
Edmund Michael (1927) Führer für Pilzfreunde, systematische geordnet und gänzlich neu bearbeitet von Roman Schulz (Guide for mushroom hunters, systematically arranged and totally revised by Roman Schulz) 3 vol. 

There are 144 pages of introductory text, and then 386 colored plates with descriptions. 

It's quite a feat when all your most popular books come out after you're dead. Michael studied agriculture in Leipzig, and ended up teaching at the agricultural academy in Auerbach from 1884 on. He wrote a field guide that it became an establishment of its own, bearing his name (sort oflike the contemporary "Webster's" dictionaries) long after he was no longer a contributor.

We learn this from  Wikipedia translated from German.

Edmund Michael was senior teacher at the Agricultural School in Auerbach. In 1895, his guide for mushroom friends first appeared with illustrations by the painter Albin Schmalfuß from Leipzig , who appeared in six editions and three volumes until his death and made him known as a fungal father.

Here is an example of one of the illustrations inside:

So nice!

The book was $1.

Who can resist? Not me.

Here are a few of my favorite mushroom pics I've taken. BTW I had eggs with mushrooms this morning for breakfast. I like mushrooms.

I mean, look at the variety! And this small selection is by far not representative of the ones I have photos of from just my yard.

So I picked up a Field Guide to mushrooms in German for $1. I had fun with researching the author, admiring the paintings inside, adding it to my field guide collection, and researching & writing about botanicals. A nice way to spend a morning!

Have a good day everyone.

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PS If you have Netflix you might enjoy the British show Dealers Put Your Money Where Your mouth Is, where British antiques dealers spend a certain amount at a thrift sale, auction, or flea market, explain what the items are and the history behind them, and then compete to try and make the most profit in reselling. I like the show because they explain what the items are and why they're interested in them. Also, the competition is extremely friendly and not a ripoff against the buyers or the antiques sellers. The donate all their profits to charity.

Mushrooms!

I like mushrooms. I am searching for mushroom soup recipes right now and I got to thinking about the mushrooms I like.

Once in the fall on the foggy mountains of Umbria, I saw an old Italian man and his dog searching for the elusive and potently tasty black truffles. It was truffle season and soon the entire mountain would be covered with aged Italians with wisdom gathering this bounty from the ground.

Once, my husband and his friend and I went searching for tree mushrooms. They are known as oyster mushrooms and they are edible. Though they can be tough, if you cook them in broth and butter for a while, plus garlic of course, they were supposed to be tasty. Our friend had learned about which mushrooms were poisonous but he wasn't typically a pay-attention type, so this was a big adventure for us, both gathering food direct from the earth and also relying on our scatterbrained friend to tell us which shrooms were safe to eat.

Once in Maine outside my office, a humongous mushroom grew on a tree. It was not an oyster mushroom. We called our friend the mycologist Sam Ristich and he came over and told us about the mushroom. It was a polyporus squamosus, also edible. We didn't eat it. We just admired it. Until it grew so large it fell off the tree and then the snow came and covered it up.

Last fall we had days and days of rain. A mushroom patch sprung up under the tree. They were pretty mushrooms, unlike the oyster or dryad's saddle. They were perfect delicate little white mushrooms. I wanted to eat them in the worst way but I think they are poisonous. I believe they are from the amanita family and this genus has names like Destroying Angel and Death Cap. In my imagination I thought that the elves and fairies would live there and I called it Mushroom Town.

Here are the mushrooms I have known. Two photos are from Maine and the rest are from my yard in Georgia!

A new mushroom town and a new kitty

In May I posted that with so much rain a mushroom town had sprung up by my favorite tree. They were very cute, pretty button mushrooms. Their arrangement looked artful. I liked them.

We have not had rain, only heat, lately. But a new mushroom town has sprung up. It is not a nice little button-cute town of mushrooms, but an ominous, crowded, ghetto tenement mushroom city. I do not like it.

Speaking of cute, my neighbor has befriended a stray kitten. The kitty howls all night outside my window, runs across the drive way as I enter in, and is crawling with fleas that are taking over her body, the patio and the yard.

My neighbor is of the opinion that since her young daughter is attached already, they will feed the kitten for a while and if it stays it stays and it if goes it goes. That is all well and good, but in our conversation, I forgot to ask two important questions:

1. When are you going to spay the kitten, so I am not left with a new litter of kittens in a few months?

2. When you move, and you are moving soon, are you going to take her with you????????

I have tried valiantly to remain aloof, but kitten cuteness is too impossible to ignore. Today I petted her, despite my horror of bringing in fleas where my own two cats will catch them. She really is a cute thing. I hate her for it.

Just finished attacking a leaf

Attacking a leaf

Thinking about attacking a leaf