U.S. National Fungus Collections Topical Files

J. A. (John Albert) Stevenson (1890-1979) was born in Woonsocket, South Dakota. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a B.S. degree in forestry and botany. He attended graduate school at the University of Minnesota and later at George Washington University, where he studied phytopathology. He served as an assistant pathologist at the Experimental Station of the Sugar Producers of Puerto Rico, and as a plant pathologist for the Puerto Rico Department of Agriculture. In 1918, he was appointed pathological inspector for the Federal Horticultural Board of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and moved to Washington, D.C. He was promoted to associate plant pathologist in 1924. Stevenson began working with the Division of Mycology and Plant Disease Survey in 1927 and took over the maintenance and development of the mycological collections. He became head of the division in 1945. Stevenson officially retired from USDA in 1960, but continued as a collaborator with the National Fungus Collections for the next 15 years.

L. M. (Lawrence Marion) Ames (1900-1966) was born in Washington. He earned his B.S. in 1927 and M.S. in 1929 from Michigan State College. He earned his PhD in 1933. Studying plant pathology and mycology, Ames worked to identify, explain, and control plant diseases. He began his career working briefly as an assistant pathologist before becoming an Associate Pathologist for the US Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine. He later became a Research Mycologist and Chief of the Fungus Control Section, Scientific Materials Section for the Army Corps of Engineers. He also served as the Dean for graduate students at the Catholic University of America in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. After retirement he remained active within the Phytopathological and mycological field of study, lending his talents serving as a consultant at a local children's hospital and the National Research Council. Shortly before his death he became a Research Professor at American University.

W. W. (William Webster) Diehl (1891-1978) was born in Indiana. He earned his B.A. from Miami University, Ohio, in 1914 and his masters in 1915 at the Iowa State College. He earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1932. Studying plant pathology and mycology, Diehl worked to identify explain, and control plant diseases. He began his career working as a special agent while earning his B.S. for the USDA Division of Agrostology and then working as an assistant agrostologist. Diehl later became an assistant plant pathologist for the Bureau of Plant Industry.

C. (Charles) Drechsler (1892-1986), a world authority on fungi, spent 45 years as a plant pathologist and mycologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While in the position of Mycologist, Horticultural Crops Research Branch, Agricultural Research Service, Drechsler published two articles in the Journal of Botany in 1954 and 1956, the illustrations for which are included in the collection.

E. F. (Emil Frederick) Guba (1897-1999) was born in Massachusetts and died in Bethesda, Maryland. He earned his bachelors at the Massachusetts Agricultural College in 1919, and his PhD at the University of Illinois in 1923. Studying plant pathology and mycology, Guba worked to identify and eliminate plant diseases as well as develop plants and produce resistant to plant fungal plant diseases. He began his career studying plant pathology at Cornell University until he began working at the Massachusetts Agricultural College as a researcher at the Waltham Field Station and as an assistant professor. After nearly forty years having published over 100 articles and bulletins, he retired with the title Professor Emeritus.

A. E. (Anna Eliza) Jenkins (1886-1972) worked as mycology researcher for the United States Department of Agriculture for over forty years. At the Bureau of Plant Industries, she worked her way up from Associate Scientist, Assistant Mycologist, Associate Mycologist, to Mycologist (1947). She earned her Bachelors in Science in 1911 and her Masters in Science in 1912 from Cornell University. Studying at both George Washington University and Cornell she earned her Ph. D. from Cornell in 1927. She studied fungi under the order of Myriangiales included the genera of Elsinoe and Sphaceloma. A broader focus was spot anthracnose. Her concern was in plant pathology, to identify which fungi are causing a disease, as well as how to prevent and control diseases from attacking plants. In her earlier career she studied the fungi of plantquarantine intercepted at U.S. ports, leading to the global study of citrus scab and spot anthracnose. Such countries and cities include: Brazil, India, Rome, Hindustan, Japan, Taiwan, China, Nairobi, Denmark, Canada, Argentina, Trinidad, Guam, and South Africa. Much of her career was spent working with Aegisulu A. Bitancourt in Sao Paulo, Brazil studying the genera of Elsinoe and Sphaceloma and various species leading to the discovery of fungi causing citrus scab disease. Through her research she was able to identify disease causing fungi, as well as their control and prevention programs. Her work helped to ensure new or foreign fungi did not negatively affect agriculture in the United States.

G. W. (George Willard) Martin (1886-1971) earned his Bachelors of Literature in 1912 and his Master's in Science in 1915 from Rutgers University. He earned his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1922. Martin worked as an Assistant Botany Professor at Rutgers University. He began working at the University of Iowa as a professor in 1923. His specific interest was in the infraphylum Mycetozoa. He served as the head of the Department of Botany and attained Emeritus status. He also served as the "Chief of the Biological Laboratory at the Army Quartermaster Depot" studying "equipment deterioration caused by fungi."

H. R. H. (Hazel Ruth Hayden) McKay (1903-1976) was born in Oregon. She began her career by studying at the University of California, Berkley. She earned her PhD at U. C. Berkley in 1932. As a student she worked at U. C. Berkley as a Teaching Fellow and later as a Research Associate for the Department of Botany. She than worked as a Research Associate for the Utah state Agriculture Experiment Station studying the cultures of fungi associated with root rot. After giving birth to several children McKay worked for the Bureau of Plant Industries as a Scientific Aid Assistant in cytological research. As a Bacteriologist for the Bureau of Agricultural and Industrial Chemistry Division she developed methods for testing microorganisms producing bacteria and fungi as well as applying antibiotics for the treatment of plant diseases. From 1952 to 1966 she worked for the US Forest Services as a Mycologist. She has published multiple articles including several with Paul A. Lentz. Hazel died on May 23, 1976.

C. C. Plitt (1869-1933) A lifelong Marylander, Plitt was both a professor of botany and an international authority on lichens. In 1891, he received a degree in pharmacy from the old Maryland College of Pharmacy. After teaching in Baltimore public schools for 36 years, Plitt began teaching botany and general science in Baltimore City College. He held a part-time position as associate professor of botany and material medica at the Maryland College of Pharmacy, which merged with the University of Maryland in 1904. In 1920, he was appointed full professor of botany and pharmacognosy. In 1921, Plitt was awarded an honorary doctor of science degree for his meritorious work in botany by the International Academy of Sciences. Plitt died on October 13, 1933, in Baltimore, Maryland.

J. R. (Jacob Richard) Schramm (1885-1976) was born in Indiana in 1885. He earned his Bachelors from Wabash College in 1910, and studied at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory in Cape Cod. He attended Washington University, St. Louis as a Lackland Fellow and earned his PhD in Botany in 1913. Afterwards he served as an Assistant Professor at Cornell University, becoming full Professor in 1917. He later severed as the Executive Secretary of the Division of Biology and Agriculture for the National Research Council and Secretary and President of the Botanic Society of America. In 1937, he became a Professor of Botany at the University of Pennsylvania and later served as the Director of the Morris Arboretum. After his retirement he was appointed as a Research Scholar at Indiana University in 1956. Schramm's greatest accomplishment was his studies of plant colonization in the Pennsylvania black mining wastes which resulted in the publication of Plant Colonization Studies of the Black Waters from Anthracite Mining in Pennsylvania (1966).

C. L. (Cornelius Lott) Shear (1865-1956) was born in New York. He earned his B.S. in 1897 and his masters in 1901 at the University of Nebraska. He earned his PhD from George Washington University in 1906. Studying plant pathology and mycology, Shear worked to identify explain, and control plant diseases. He began his career working as a special agent while earning his B.S. for the USDA Division of Agrostology and then working as an assistant agrostologist. He later became an assistant plant pathologist for the Bureau of Plant Industry. He also founded the American Phytopathological Society (APS) in 1908-1909. The APS acted as an organization for plant pathologists from various institutions around the US to communicate, interact, and develop a network of cooperation for this new and growing study. The APS would begin publishing a monthly journal, Phytopathology, in 1911. After more than thirty years Shear retired from the USDA in 1935. Before his interest in plant pathology, Shear worked as a teacher in New York State and Nebraska.

E. F. (Erwin Frink) Smith (1854-1927) served as the Chief of Plant Pathology in the Bureau of Plant Industry, U.S. Department of Agriculture, for almost four decades, from 1889-1927, Smith is recognized as the "father of bacterial plant pathology." The author of more than 240 articles, he was elected president of the Society of Cancer Research in 1924.

The US National Fungus Collections is one of the world’s largest herbariums of dried fungus specimens. It was established in 1869 from a collection of fungus specimens transferred from the Smithsonian Institution to the USDA. In the past, it was part of the USDA’s Mycology and Disease Survey. Currently, the US National Fungus Collections is a part of the Mycology and Nematology Genetic Diversity and Biology Laboratory at USDA.