ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on collecting specimens of fungal fruiting bodies (mushrooms). Compared with plants, which have leaves, flowers and fruits, mushrooms have relatively few features to enable classification. Accurate identification relies on features such as spores (colour, size, morphological forms and grain), epidermis (peridium) and ascidium (pitcher-shaped part), which can be observed under a microscope. It is therefore vital to possess good fungal specimens. Detailed guidelines on how to collect, label, store and maintain collections of fungi are available from various sources, including the manual by Baxter and van der Linde (1999), which can be downloaded from www.spc.int/pps/SAFRINET/fung-scr.pdf.
