author
Charles McIlvaine
1840–1909
A Civil War veteran who turned his restless curiosity toward the natural world, he became one of America’s early popular writers on mushrooms. His best-known work helped everyday readers explore fungi with a mix of caution, enthusiasm, and firsthand experience.
1 Audiobook
Toadstools, mushrooms, fungi, edible and poisonous; one thousand American fungi How to select and cook the edible; how to distinguish and avoid the poisonous, with full botanic descriptions. Toadstool poisons and their treatment, instructions to students, recipes for cooking, etc., etc.
by Charles McIlvaine, Robert K. Macadam
About the author
Born in Pennsylvania in 1840, Charles McIlvaine served in the American Civil War before later building a very different reputation as a writer and mycologist. He is especially remembered for bringing mushrooms and other fungi to a wider audience at a time when many readers knew little about them.
His most famous book, One Thousand American Fungi, became a notable early guide to edible and poisonous mushrooms in the United States. Drawing on observation, collection, and practical testing, he wrote in a way that aimed to help ordinary readers recognize species and think more confidently about the natural world around them.
McIlvaine also wrote other works, including Outdoors, Indoors, and Up the Chimney. He died in 1909, but his name has remained familiar in American mycology because of the energy and curiosity he brought to a subject that still fascinates readers today.