Fungi Source

A far-and-wide search for the literature of fungi — early mycological treatises, golden-age plate books and modern field guides, public-domain first. Gathered, OCR'd, translated and catalogued into one open database: free to all and shared via an API to power AI tools, research and visualisation — and handed off to Source Library.

Mockup of the Source Library — Fungi Collection page that this research is ported into

Fungi Source begins as a hunt. We comb the Biodiversity Heritage Library, the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg — and antiquarian catalogues beyond them — for anything written about, or useful to the study of, fungi. Every lead is read, sourced, and its rights status established before it earns a place.

Much of the canon is locked in Latin, French, German, Italian and Swedish. Part of the work is OCR and translation — turning page scans into searchable, readable text — then structuring it into a single open database. Free and open-sourced and shared through an API, the collection becomes raw material to power AI tools, research and visualisation. A caveat travels with the old volumes: treat their edibility guidance as history, not a foraging manual.

The collection

60 titles across 7 languages and three centuries — every one public domain, with the full book a click away on the Internet Archive. A working seed of the database; it grows continuously. Tap a cover for the summary, details and the download.

Plates

A wall of the finest public-domain illustrations in the collection — hand-coloured engravings and lithographs from Schäffer, Sowerby, Hussey, Krombholz, Bulliard, Boudier, Cooke and more. Tap any plate to enlarge.

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One open database, handed to Source Library

Each title is OCR'd, translated where it's needed, and catalogued — author, year, language, subject, provenance, rights and a link to the scan — into one centralised, open dataset. Published free and open-sourced and shared through an API, so anyone can build on it: AI tools, research, cross-text insight and visualisation. The collection is ported into sourcelibrary.org, where it's published, browsed and grown — this page is the record of the effort behind it.

View the Source Library project →