Elsie Maud Wakefield

Elsie Maud Wakefield (born July 3, 1886 in Birmingham , † June 17, 1972 ) was a British mycologist . Your official botanical author abbreviation is “ Wakef. "

Life

Wakefield was the daughter of a science teacher, attended Swansea High School for Girls and studied botany at Oxford University (Somerville College). After her graduation (MA) she worked with Carl von Tubeuf in Munich (Forest Science Institute) and on her return in 1910 she was assistant to George Edward Massee at the Royal Botanic Gardens (Kew) , whose successor she was as head of mycology (fungi and lichens, from 1915). In 1920 she was on a research stay in the Caribbean at the Imperial Department of Agriculture. In 1951 she retired in Kew. Her successor was Richard William George Dennis , who was her assistant from 1944.

She published around 100 articles on fungi and plant diseases, including two popular science identification books on British fungi. Her first article appeared in German in Munich (About the conditions of the fruiting body formation of the Hymenomycetes). She described many new species, and some species are named after her, including the genera Wakefieldia and Wakefieldiomyces . Wakefield was a talented draftsman who also illustrated her mushroom treatises herself. She also worked on plant pathology in Kew (from 1915), but later pursued this at the Pathological Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture. Later she dealt more with taxonomic issues.

In 1929 she became President of the British Mycological Society and from 1918 to 1936 its secretary and from 1941 its honorary member. In 1950 she became OBE . In 1911 she became a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London .

Fonts

• Nigerian Fungi, Kew bulletin of miscellaneous information 1912, pp. 141-144
• with AD Cotton : A revision of the British Clavaria e. Transactions of the British Mycological Society 6, 1919, pp. 164-198
• Mosaic diseases of plants. West Indian Bulletin 18, 1921, pp. 197-206
• with W. Buddin: Studies on Rhizoctonia crocorum and Helicobasidium purpureum . Transactions of the British Mycological Society 12, 1927, pp. 116-140
• Edible and poisonous fungi, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Bulletin 23, 1945, 6th edition, HMSO
• with RWG Dennis: Common British fungi. London: Gawthorn 1950
• The observers' book of common fungi. London: Warne 1954
• Tomentelloideae in the British Isles. Transactions of the British Mycological Society 53, 1969, pp. 161-206.

literature

• Entry in Marilyn Ogilvie, Joy Harvey (Ed.): The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: L – Z, Routledge 2000

Web links

• Biography, Mushroom Journal (English)