Illustrated Genera of Imperfect Fungi by Horace Leslie Barnett

As a student, I used an earlier edition of this book for identifying fungi in my mycology class at the University of Minnesota.  The addition of photos in the front of the book are a welcome improvement over the original text.  Multiple similar organisms are pictured on the same page and this helps to differentiate between them for identification.

Link to book: Illustrated Genera of Imperfect Fungi 4th (fourth) Edition by Barnett, Horace Leslie, Hunter, Barry B. published by Amer Phytopathological Society (1998)

The book is useful for both the beginning mycologist focusing on indoor air and the plant pathologist.  The line drawings aide in identification.  The addition of a 10 micron scale to each of the drawings would also make it even more useful. 

This book provides an excellent companion to Identifying Filamentous Fungi and The Genera of Hyphomycetes. 

Hyaline monomorphic fungi Glen Roberts PhD part 4 - 20 min.

Hyaline monomorphic fungi Glen Roberts PhD part 5 - 29 min.

Hyaline monomorphic fungi Glen Roberts PhD part 6 - 13 min.

Identifying Fungi by Guy St. Germain and Richard Summerbell

I have used the lab reference book Identifying Fungi 2nd Edition by Guy St-Germain and Richard Summerbell as the text for a course on indoor air fungal identification taught at the University of Minnesota.  The students like the accessible format with both a textual and visual key at the beginning of the book.  Each organism has a line drawing to scale, a photo of the organism in culture and a photo of the organism under light microscopy. 

The glossary and suggestions media and stains are also helpful.  I have met both of the authors.  Guy St-Germain took a class with me in San Antonio, Texas with the National Laboratory Training Network.  Richard Summerbell taught a section of a fungal identification course in Ottawa, Canada. 

As we've trained staff in our department on fungal identification, this book and the first edition have been the one we've used to get them started to become competent at identifying some of the most common indoor molds on culture. 

Identifying filamentous fungi Glen Roberts - PhD - part one - 24 min. 

Monomorphic fungi Glen Roberts - PhD - part two - 26 min.

Monomorphic fungi Glen Roberts - PhD - part three - 16 min.

The Genera of Hyphomycetes by Keith Seifert and others

The Genera of Hyphomycetes

I recently borrowed a copy of The Genera of Hyphomycetes in the McGrath Library of the St. Paul Campus of the University of Minnesota. This massive tomb of nearly 1,000 pages took over twenty years to complete. There are close to 1,000 line drawings of hyphomycetes classified by spore type.  I ended up using the book to help identify a fungal organism growing on a window ledge.

I had the opportunity to meet the principal author, Keith Seifert, where he was one of several lecturers at a fungal identification workshop in Ottawa, Canada many years ago. At that time his specialty was the genus Fusarium spp. The class was excellent, as was the city and the dining.  During the conference we were able to attend a traveling Renoir portrait exhibit at the local museum. Each painting included historical information about the subject(s).  Of all the paintings in the exhibit, I found the large portrait of Monet painting in his garden to be the most intriguing.

The plants in our gardens survive because mycologists working as plant pathologists quietly do work that reveals the complex often multi-host ecology of these fungal organisms. Medical mycologist work on human disease prevention. In health and safety, we poke around the edges of mycology trying to our best to keep people alive, buildings from rotting, and research on other organisms free from contamination. I very much appreciate the work these authors put into this book to help all of us who search around the edges.

Gentle teasing of the Author Keith Seifert by P. W. Crous and R. A. Samson 2 min.

Importance of Hyphomycete taxonomy - Keith Seifert 17 minutes.