The Macrolichens of New England is a wonderful book. Among its many virtues, one stands out: its completeness. It provides keys and detailed species accounts (botanical names that include the authorities, an English name, a list of synonyms and misapplied names, descriptions, range and habitat information, plus comparative notes) for all 461 macrolichen species known to have occurred in New England. In addition, 41 species from adjacent states or provinces are given separate entries in the keys and are mentioned in the comparative notes. A further 23 species are also mentioned in the notes. By virtue of the large number of species treated, the geographic coverage is much larger than merely New England. The authors estimate that species coverage will be 100% for south-eastern Canada, as far west as Ontario, including all of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and more than 95% coverage (but including 100% of the more common species) for the mid-Atlantic states as far south as Delaware and Maryland, and for the Great Lakes region (Michigan, Wisconsin, and the northern halves of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois), a total area approximately 10 times that of New England. This remarkable geographical coverage greatly enhances the usefulness of the book.

The macrolichens treated include squamulose genera, such as Endocarpon, Psora, and in part, Fuscopannaria and filamentous genera such as Racodium and Ephebe. It excludes, however, all species of calicioid lichens which are essentially crustose.

For non-North Americans, the major interest may be the excellent photographs of 308 species, primarily the more common ones (about half of which are found in Europe). The authors aim to illustrate the most important characters of each species, and in executing this, they generally use more close-up views and higher magnification photographs than is common. They are mostly successful; so much so, in fact, that frequently I found myself wishing for more complete photographic coverage of many genera, even though it would have made for a heavier and much more expensive book.

Of interest to the macrolichen specialist will be the tables giving the distributional status of species for New England. In summary, approximately 51% of the macrolichen species are regionally rare (based upon the number of sites at which they have been found recently) plus another 5% are known to be declining.

Also of interest is the structure of the general keys, which have been divided into 50 or so mini-keys using a handful of easily determined characters of the specimen observed. For example, Parmelia sulcata can be found in key T-7 which covers foliose, sorediate, mineral-grey lichens with narrow lobes, growing on trees. It also can be found in key R-6, which covers the same characters except for thalli growing on rock. Flavocetraria nivalis can be found in key S-5, which covers richly-branched, yellow-green, fruticose species growing on soil and also in key S-1, which covers yellow-green, foliose species growing on soil. This keying out of the same taxon in multiple keys is one of the features that makes the keys so easy to use.

There are also complete keys for each genus. Unfortunately, in order to save several pages of space, some of the general keys refer the user to the generic keys, specifically those ofBryoria, Cladonia, Peltigera, Ramalina, Umbilicaria and Usnea. While this works well in the confines of the laboratory or the home, it makes it more difficult to copy and to use the keys in the field. (The book itself is a bit too large and too heavy to carry into the field.) [Editorial note: copying large parts of the book, even if only for personal use, may be a breach of copyright regulations].

A nice feature of the book is that the more common species (i.e., those not rarely encountered in New England) are highlighted in yellow in the keys. Another nice feature is the exceptionally detailed and useful index to botanical names as well as a separate index to the English names. For beginners, the book boasts well-written introductory chapters on macrolichens (their morphology, anatomy, and modes of reproduction), on the crustose lichens that may be confused with macrolichens, on the collection and identification of macrolichens, on the ecological roles and human-uses of lichens in New England, and on the biophysical regions of New England. There is also an almost complete glossary of the technical words used in the book.

It is interesting that the authors seem to assume that the reader would already own Brodo et al.’s Lichens of North America, because they refer to photographs in that work so frequently. This led me to check various genera to see how much overlap in species coverage there was between the two books. Generally Brodo et al. treat (at least in the comparative notes) 90% or more of the species covered in The Macrolichens of New England and almost all of the more common species.

However, despite the high degree of overlap, I strongly recommend that you buy The Macrolichens of New England even if you already own Lichens of North America. Here are my reasons: for its easy-to-use, region-specific general keys that take you directly to species in most instances, for its complete coverage of the region in the keys and in the species accounts, for its detailed information on the distributional status of the species of the region, for its exceptional photographs, which capture the main characters of most of the more common species in the region, and finally, for its more up-to-date taxonomy.