Case Studies

Two mushroom guides

The 20th century saw the publication of numerous small mushroom guides in Europe, aimed at helping people avoid the dangerous species. Here are the covers of two such guides. The two publications are quite different in format but the covers give the common aims of each guide, albeit in two different ways.

The Guide Sancey, published in Paris in 1921, is a book of 270 pages with brief descriptions of numerous species along with black-and-white drawings of many of them. On the cover is a drawing of a mushroom in the genus Amanita. The book's intent is given clearly by the French sentence on the mushroom cap (tu ne tueras plus), for it says: you will kill no more.

The other publication is titled Pilz-Lineal and is simply a single sheet, 40 x 20 cm and printed on both sides, which closes concertina-fashion to 10 x 20 cm. It was published in Germany in about 1947 and has small pictures and very brief descriptions of 30 species. The cover ostensibly shows a hand holding the Pilz-Lineal open to one of its panels, but no panel actually corresponds to the one shown on the cover, though each panel's format is as shown. The Pilz-Lineal gives its intent by means of a German verse on the cover:

Fehlt Dir der rechte Pilzverstand,
dann nimm das Pilz-Lineal zur Hand.
Du legst es an, damit Du weißt,
wie der, den Du gefunden, heißt.
Es nennt den Namen und gibt an,
ob man den Pilz auch essen kann.

Here is a translation. It keeps the sense and the rhymes, rather than being too literal a translation.

If mushrooms you do not understand,
then take the Pilz-Lineal in your hand.
Now lay it out to see the kind
of mushroom that you just did find.
It'll give you the name and let you know
if eating the mushroom will lay you low.