Identifying
New Zealand Fungi

. This is a stereoscopic picture site, not a reference for naming toadstools. Very few New Zealanders eat toadstools, but certainly do not base your cuisine on the pictures seen here!

This collection of 3D toadstools has grown so big,  classification is needed.

The book of New Zealand toadstools and mushrooms by Marie Taylor is unfortunately out of print. It provides a simple graphical classification. I have followed it here as suggested to me by Don Horne who also used it in his book: "Mushrooms and Other Fungi of New Zealand" (Reed, 2000)

Identification of individual toadstools from photographs is unreliable, but Clive Shirley has kindly helped me. Clive authors The Hidden Forest web site and uses the proper Latin binomial names. Fortunately he also has a contents side bar which can be switched to common names.

http://www.hiddenforest.co.nz

An even more complex database is run by Landcare Research with an amazing search engine, but you have to know the Latin name you are searching for.

http://nzfungi.landcareresearch.co.nz

Since many of the pictures on the landcare site are from Clive Shirley, you may as well go to his site!

Very early you find the Latin names for such pretty organisms are unsightly and unpronouncable, but this ugliness has to be endured, otherwise it is impossible to use other books or web sites.

Shirley Kerr is another microscopist with an authoratative and nicely illustrated web site, which seems to be growing all the time:

http://www.kaimaibush.co.nz

Shirley and Clive are leading lights in the Photo Fungi Foray Group and many of the fungi photographed in 3D here were kindly located by one or the other of them during forays in 2004. It is discouragingly easy to walk right past a pretty toadstool and it helps to have an observant expert in the group. If you wish to join up try:

http://www.fungi.co.nz/

The links page there takes you to all known New Zealand fungi web sites and so no more links will be given here.