Roger became a friend of my family in the late 1960s, when he was working as a food photographer, capturing, for magazines and partworks, glistening images of both natural produce and exquisitely presented meals. To keen gardeners and plantsmen, the names Phillips and Rix enjoy the same level of recognition as that of any other famous double-act you could mention,” observed Christopher Bailes in The Daily Telegraph, in 2002. In 1975 he began his life’s major work, photographing an encyclopaedic collection of world plants and he has since written 20 additional volumes with combined sales of 4. In this group of Water Carriers can be found nearly all the conventional mushrooms with cap, stem and gill or pores.

He took pictures for the album Goodbye for rock band Cream, on a commission from his friend Alan Aldridge, and later took pictures for the Jack Bruce albums Songs for a Tailor and Out of the Storm. His aim, Phillips explained, was “to photograph in the way the old botanical masters used to draw”, and his delightfully arranged compositions showed tarte aux myrtilles on the banks of a woodland stream and Carragheen soup precariously balanced on waveswept rocks.Roger Phillips, who has died aged 88, was a self-taught plantsman and portrait photographer of plants, the author or co-author of numerous beautifully illustrated books, including guides to wild flowers and edible wild plants, roses and other garden flowers, fungi, and even fish. He believes not only that we may see a necessary revival in sustainability, but that some of the more miraculous properties of fungi in particular might yet help us to fix the damage already done to the planet. This introduced readers to the delights of the now ubiquitous rocket, as well as ceps and alexanders (a parsley-like vegetable brought to Britain by the Romans, said to be delicious cooked in butter and black pepper). The book provides up-to-date botanical and common names of more than 1,000 species, along with accompanying images for each listing. The distinguishing feature of Roger’s more than 40 books was their clean, uncluttered look, his meticulous colour images set against a white background, like the specimens pressed in paper in the collections of Victorian naturalists.

There he earned extra pocket money by picking mushrooms which his grandmother would then cook and send to market: “I remember one year when we picked 70 pounds in a single day. Three months into his national service in the RAF in Canada, he says, he somehow persuaded an air vice marshal to let him go home on the basis that he didn’t want to be trained to kill people. Fall is the main season for wild mushrooms in the Northern Hemisphere, starting with chanterelles as early as August and continuing until the end of November, with varieties such as porcini, hedgehog mushrooms, and pieds bleus. He became a cult figure among foragers after the publication in 1983 of his Wild Food, a book featuring recipes alongside full-colour photographs of British plants and fungi. Roger’s book, ‘Mushrooms’, first published in 2006, has been hugely successful, with more than 2 million copies sold worldwide in 7 European languages.

Dust Jackets are not guaranteed and when still present, they will have various degrees of tear and damage.

The culmination of over thirty years' work, Roger Phillips's authoritative and superbly illustrated reference work is packed with information and original photographs. Photograph: Sophie Davidson Roger Phillips tended the gardens of Eccleston Square, London, where he lived, for more than 40 years. His first book Wild Flowers of Britain was a huge success, selling 400,000 copies in the first year. Ascomycetes: Morels; Saddle fungi; Cup fungi; Ear fungi; Club-shaped fungi; Finger and disc fungi; Truffles; Sports and crusts.I guess a first question with any mushroom hunter is about hallucinogens but Phillips insists he has never had any interest in the “magic” side of his vocation. Definitely one of the largest pictorial collection of UK native fungi and a must own for anyone interested in fungi. That spirit has taken him all over the world – adventures in wild food that are celebrated in his latest book, The Worldwide Forager. Over the last two years he also worked on new editions of the books on vegetables, wild flowers and trees.