How to use The Boletes of California

This is an online reprint of California Mushrooms: A Field Guide to the Boletes by Dr. Harry D. Thiers. This version (The Boletes of California) adds some online features not available on the printed page. This page explains how to use those features and gives you a tour of this site's organization.

Navigating the Pages

Several navigational aids help you move through the pages.

The Navigation Frame

If your browser supports frames (as all recent browsers do), you should see a frame at the bottom of the page.  The frame contains navigation controls to help you move through the site's pages:

• Main Page takes you to the site's top page.
• Help brings you to this page.
• Species Index takes you to a list of boletes arranged in alphabetical order by scientific name.  You can use the links here to jump to any genus or species description in the site.
• Key takes you to the technical key where you can identify a specimen and jump to the species description for your identification.
• Field Key takes you to the field key where you can identify a specimen without using special equipment and then jump to the species description for your identification.

If your browser doesn't support frames, use the browser's Back and Forward buttons to get back to the main page and find other pages as necessary.

Finding the Content You Want

We've segmented the contents of The Boletes of California into separate web  pages for this site and we've added a few new pages such as this one to support the book in its online form.  These are the main segments.

New Online Content

This material is new content written for the online version of The Boletes of California.

• How to Use The Boletes of California is the page you're reading now.
• Foreward to the Online Edition tells how this site came about and how it got its structure.

Introductory Material

• Preface introduces you to the book, describes its contents and use, and gives acknowledgments.
• About Boletes introduces you to boletes and their characteristics. Reading this page teaches you the concepts and terminology you need to use the keys and read the species descriptions elsewhere in this site.  You'll find two additional pages here. Mycorrhizal Hosts tells what different species of boletes are typically associated with what trees.  And Synopsis of California Boletaceae shows the taxonomic relations of California boletes in outline form.

Taxa Descriptions

• Family and Generic Descriptions is a short page describing the family Boletaceae and each genus within that family. You can read it by jumping directly to the page from the main page, or by clicking links included in the species index and in the Synopsis of California Boletacea.
• Species descriptions is a set of pages that each fully describe a species of California bolete.  You can get to a species description page in any one of three ways:
  • Use the Species List, an alphabetical list of boletes given by their scientific names (genus and species). Click on any name to see the description of that species.
  • Use the Technical Key to identify a specimen through a series of dichotomous characteristic questions, then click the link when you've finally identified a species.  You can then read the description of that species.  The technical key uses characteristics that may require a microscope or chemicals to determine.
  • Use the Field Key to identify a specimen as you would with the technical key, and click the link to read the description of the species you identify.  The field key doesn't use characteristics that require special equipment or chemicals to determine.

Additional Material

The original book also included these additional sections:

• Bibliography is a list of other publications supporting the work presented in this book.
• Microfiche reproduces the single microfiche included with the original book. The microfiche image includes 54 small photographs of boletes meant for magnification.  You can view the entire microfiche in any of three resolutions.  The resolutions sizes are set to make an interesting monitor screen background for different sized monitors if you care to use the image that way.  You can look at a numbered list of the species shown in microfiche.  You can also find the individual microfiche photographs within appropriate species descriptions, enlarged so you can look at the photo in much more detail.

Using the Keys

To identify boletes to species, you must learn to successfully use either of the two keys offered here: the technical key or the field key.  Each key is presented on its own page.  You'll find at the top of each page a list of links to different parts of the key, typically links to genus, section, or subsection.  If you've identified a specimen already to genus, section, or subsection, just click on the appropriate classification and start working through the key at that point until you find the species you think is appropriate.  If you don't know your bolete's genus, section, or subsection, click on the top link to start at the beginning of the key.

If you haven't used a dichotomous key before, you'll find that it consists of a series of two-statement pairs: couplets.  To work through the key from your starting point, find the statement in the first couplet that best describes your specimen, and look at the link or number to the right of that statement.  If it's a link, click on it to jump to the next part of the key and continue work from there--or, if you've identified it to species, to jump to the species description.  If you see a number, read down in the current key to the couplet with that number and continue to work through the key from there.

Working through a key requires that you know the terminology and characteristics used to describe boletes.  If you don't know them, you can learn them in the page About Boletes.  If you're stymied by a word you don't find there, you may find it in the glossary of Fungi of the Bay Area.

Reading Species Descriptions

Each species description page contains the original description written by Dr. Thiers.  You'll find the species name, citation, and synonyms. You'll also find microscopic and macroscopic characteristics, notes on habit, habitat, and distribution, and observations.  If there's a photo of this species in the microfiche, you'll find a link to that photo at the top of the page.

We've added a few small elements for the online version of this book at the bottom of the page.  If we know about an online photo or description of the species described, you'll find a link to the photo or description here.  In a few instances, if we know of some taxonomic changes that have taken place since this book was published, we'll note them here.