Job Bicknell Ellis

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Job Bicknell Ellis

Job Bicknell Ellis (born January 21, 1829 in Potsdam (New York) , † December 30, 1905 in Newfield (New Jersey) ) was an American mycologist . He was considered one of the pioneers of American mycology. He dealt with all kinds of fungi, but he was particularly interested in the parasitic sac fungi (Ascomycota), especially the Sordariomycetes (then Pyrenomycetes). He described over 4000 species. Even if his taxonomic work is considered outdated today, many of the species he first described are still valid today. Many genera and numerous species were named after him in his honor. Its botanical author abbreviation is " Ellis ".

As the 10th of 14th children, he worked alongside his school attendance on his father's farm until he was 16. Then he got a job as a teacher at the Winter School in Stockholm, New Jersey . From 1849 he attended Union College in Schenectady to study classical studies . He had to interrupt his studies due to lack of money and continue teaching, but was able to complete it in 1851 with a Bachelor of Arts. He later also received a Master of Arts degree, with no indication that he was returning to Union College to continue his studies. After graduating, he spent several years teaching classical antiquity in various places ( Germantown , Albany (New York) , Poughkeepsie ) in the northeastern United States. In 1855 he and his sister Louisa moved south to Charleston, South Carolina and on to Alexander, Georgia, in hopes of a suitable teaching position . Shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War , this was a difficult undertaking for Northerners, although both found a job in Alexander. However, they only stayed for a semester and returned to the north.

During this unstable phase for his life his interest in botany and mycology developed. He had already studied a little botany at Union College, and after graduating, he regularly accompanied teachers who were friends with them to collect plants. He read Henry William Ravenel's Fungi Caroliniani Exsiccati and began corresponding with him in February 1855. He recommended several other mycological works to him, which he found important for the study of mycology, and Ellis sent him fungal samples for identification because Ravel needed them for his research. With the exception of a break during the Civil War, contact with Ravenel continued until his death in 1887.

In 1856, after his return to Potsdam, he married his wife, Arvilla J. Bacon, on April 19, with whom he had a daughter who was born in July 1857. He got the position as director of the Canton Academy, near Potsdam, where he moved with his family to Ogdensburg (New Jersey) as early as the spring of 1858 with the desire to move on to Minnesota . The trip with the planned crossing of the Great Lakes was delayed, however, and they made the decision to move back to Potsdam, where Ellis finally bought 13 acres of land, built a house and tilled the land there. He also continued his work as a teacher.

When the Civil War broke out, he was serving in the Union Navy on the USS Susquehanna . Numerous letters to his wife and his diary have been preserved and published. After a short time on the ship he was employed as a teacher and relieved of his other activities. He also wrote poems and learned German. Thanks to shore leave at the New York Naval Shipyard , he found again access to mycology at a bookseller on Broadway, who allowed him to copy parts of books. On May 18, 1865, he was discharged from military service and had already forged new plans to move. At the beginning of August of the same year, he and his family moved to what would later become Newfield (New Jersey) , where he built a house again. There he and his wife lived the rest of their lives without ever traveling further from their home.

In Newfield he returned to farming and occasionally taught at school. In 1866 he was elected president of the newly founded library. Increasingly, he expanded his mycological knowledge, bought literature and mushrooms and intensified his correspondence with several mycologists and collectors. For several years he sent mushrooms to Mordecai Cubitt Cooke in England, who published the findings based on them in the magazine Grevillea , naming Ellis as a co-author. However, the two developed increasingly different understandings of their mycological concepts, which ultimately led to Ellis reducing 20 species (9 of which were described together) to synonyms and Cooke no longer sent any further material, but from then on published his own work. He published until shortly before his death; a total of 202 scientific papers.

In 1876 Ellis took up with the botanist William Gilson Farlow from Harvard University , who had just started his career there. From this point on, Farlow had a great influence on the work of Ellis and in 1877 he published for the first time with Fungi Nova-Caesareenses Exsiccatae , collections of dried mushroom samples. Farlow also convinced Ellis to broaden his publication and to expand it to the mushrooms of North America. From 1878 to 1894 followed accordingly, together with Farlow Exsiccatae for North American Fungi ; Due to Ellis, for the first time in English instead of Latin. They also published the Exsiccatae in bound books instead of loose sheets, whereby Ellis Frau produced most of the books herself due to the high costs of binding - a total of around 2,000 copies with around 200,000 mushroom samples. From 1878, with the great support of his wife, he devoted himself exclusively to the North American Fungi due to the high demand and was thus able to finance the common living. At the same time he intensified his correspondence with numerous leading mycologists.

In 1878 he became a member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University , at that time the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, in 1882 the Cryptogamic Society of Scotland and the Imperial and Royal Zoological and Botanical Society in Vienna .

In 1880 the partnership began with the trader and mycologist Benjamin Matlack Everhart , with whom he described most of the species together and who also became co-editor of many of his writings as well as some series of the Exsiccatae of the North American Fungi and the book Norch American Pyrenomycetes . Everhart not only gave Ellis access to his large mycological library, but also supported him financially.

In 1896 Ellis sold most of his herbarium collection to the New York Botanical Garden , which also acquired most of his library. The herbarium was the largest private mycological collection in North America at the time and also included numerous specimens from all over the world. In 1899, his wife Arvilla died, after which Ellis stopped publishing North American Fungi . Although he continued to devote himself to his mycological work, the death of his wife marked the turning point in his scientific career. But even when he was no longer able to use a pen to write, he continued his work by dictating letters to his daughter Cora. He died at the age of 76 on the night of December 30, 1905.

Works (selection)

  • 1877 Fungi Nova-Caesareenses .
  • In 1885, Ellis co-founded the Journal of Mycology (forerunner of Mycologia ), the world's second mycological journal, with Everhart and William A. Kellerman .
  • Fungi Columbiani ( Fungi of America ); Published in 1893 together with Everhart as the second edition of the North American Fungi in an edition of 60 copies.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Geraldine C. Kaye: Job Bicknell Ellis 1829–1905 . Mycotaxon 26, July-September 1986, pp. 29-45 (online: [1] )
  2. ^ Author entry and list of the described plant names for Job Bicknell Ellis at the IPNI
personal data
SURNAME Ellis, Job Bicknell
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mycologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1829
PLACE OF BIRTH Potsdam (New York)
DATE OF DEATH December 30, 1905
Place of death Newfield (New Jersey)