Mycology on the World Wide Web is mushrooming! It seems like there is a new mushroom site on the Web almost every day. These range from the scourge of the Web: sites with only links and minimal content to pages with great information. If you have the ability to browse the Web, many interesting hours can be spent foraying on the Web. Not everything you find will be quality information, but remember, all this is very new. A year or two ago none of these mushroom sites even existed. More and better information is being made available all the time.
Here are some of the better mushroom Web pages, along with a few comments about what you can expect to find. All of these tend to be works in progress, so check back often for added material.
Myko Web
(http://www.mykoweb.com/)
This is my Web site, so you have to expect me to list it! At "Myko Web" you will find recipes, information on mushroom shows, a bibliography of the literature of the hypogeous and secotioid fungi (for those of you seriously interested in truffles and truffling), a list of all the mushroom clubs in North America with their addresses, and, of course, a link to the home page of the Mycological Society of San Francisco. You will also find an annotated list of links to other mushroom sites, in fact you can use this list to find all the other sites listed in this article. Future plans include a gallery of mushroom pictures (my slide scanner is on order!) and photos with descriptions of 100+ common fungi of the Bay Area. Stay tuned!
Mycelium
(http://www.igc.apc.org/mushroom/welco.html)
Wayne Harrison's "Mycelium" has lots of information including mushroom recipes, preservation of mushrooms, a æmushroom in the spotlight', and some miscellaneous mushroom articles. For some good humor, try Wayne's Wacky Mushroom Glossary. For example: autodigestion - eating in the car on the way to mushroom hunting grounds.
MycoElectronica
(http://www.mv.com:80/ipusers/dhabolt/dad/mushroom.html)
John Dhabolt's "mycoElectronica" has information on mushroom stamps, mushroom poisoning, and some mushroom descriptions.
Wild Mushrooms
(http://www.ijs.si/gobe/)
From Slovenia, "Wild Mushrooms: How to Find, Cook and Eat Them -- and Survive!" has photos and descriptions of the common edible and poisonous mushrooms of Slovenia. You may be surprised how many of the species listed are found in California. However, I definitely do not recommend eating Boletus erythropus, which is listed as edible!
MycoPage
(http://www.inf.unitn.it/~mflorian/mycopage.html)
Marco Floriani's "MycoPage" currently has the best mushroom pictures that I have found on the Web.
Introduction to the Fungi
(http://ucmp1.berkeley.edu/fungi/fungi.html)
From the University of California Museum of Paleontology you can learn about the systematics, life history, ecology, and morphology of the Kingdom of the Fungi. When you are done exploring the fungi, you can continue with all the other organisms!
There are many other sites on the Web with information and photos of mushrooms. Use the links in "Myko Web" and the other sites listed here to find them. And while you are at it, check out the Usenet newsgroup Bionet.mycology. It has interesting posts from professional and amateur mycologists. Happy hunting!