Awards and Personalia

Awards IMA Fellows

The Executive Committee of the IMA, at its meeting in Utrecht on 14 April 2012 (see IMA Fungus 3: (17), 2012), decided that it was appropriate to introduce a new category of IMA Fellows as a mid-career award. Following that meeting, guidelines for the awards have been developed by the Committee and are presented below. These guidelines cannot be fully implemented until IMC11 in 2018. To initiate the program, the founding cohort of fellows will be selected by a committee of current and former IMA Officers and Executive Committee Members. For this initial round, nominations are solicited from the membership at large and should be sent to the IMA Secretary-General, Dominik Begerow, (dominik.begerow@rub. de) to arrive before 1 February 2014.

Protocols for nomination and election

Eligibility for selection. To be eligible for nomination as an IMA Fellow, a member of the IMA must, at the time ofthe International Mycological Congress where the award is to be made, have completed at least 11 years of service after the award of a PhD degree; e.g. for IMC10 in 2014, a nominee must have received a PhD before 2003.

Criteria for Nomination and Selection. Fellows shall be mycologists who have made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of mycology at an international level, through service to the IMA, its Regional Committees, organization of international meetings or initiatives, or otherwise, as the Award Committees deem appropriate.

Numbers. As many as 12 IMA Fellows may be selected for induction at each IMC, one from each IMA Regional Mycological Member Organization, and as many as six from the IMA in general.

Committees for Nomination and Selection

General IMA Fellows Award Committee. The IMA President shall appoint senior and distinguished mycologists to an IMA Fellows Committee consisting of at least two members and a chairperson.

IMA RMMO Fellows Committees. Each IMA Regional Member Mycological Organization shall appoint senior and distinguished mycologists to an IMA RMMO Fellow Committee consisting of at least two members and a chairperson.

Responsibilities ofthe IMA Fellows Committees

• (1) Timing of events. The committees shall arrange for a call for nominations to be published in IMA Fungus in June of the year preceding the IMC with a deadline for receipt of nominations by December of that year. The committees will vote to select the fellow(s) and report the results to the IMA President by February of the year of the IMC so that the new IMA Fellows can be notified in time to attend that year’s IMC.

• (2) Nomination of candidates. The nominator shall submit, by 1 December of the year before the IMC, to the IMC Fellows Committee, a letter of nomination that addresses the criteria for selection, a current curriculum vitae for the candidate that contains information relating to the criteria for selection, and two supporting letters from mycologists familiar with the candidate. The IMC Fellows committee shall distribute the nominations to the appropriate RMMO Fellows Committees by 5 December of the year before the ICM.

• (3) Selection of candidates. Each IMA RMMO Fellows Committee shall, by 1 February of the year of the IMC, select one fellow from among their pool of nominees and forward to the IMA Fellow Committee the nomination material for all of the nominees for ratification of their choice by the IMA Fellows Committee. The IMA Fellows Committee shall select up to six fellows from their pool of nominees and report all selected fellows to the IMA president before March 1st of the year of the IMC.

Induction of IMA Fellows

The IMA Fellows shall be inducted by the President of the IMA at the International Mycological Congress.

IMA Young Mycologist Awards 2014

To honour the accomplishments of those who are the future of our field, the IMA Executive Committee initiated IMA Young Mycologist Awards in 2010. The first six awards were made for IMC9, and the recipients (see IMA Fungus 2: (53–54), 2012; 3: (25), 2013) will receive their awards at IMC10. Awards such as the IMA Young Mycologist Awards do more than honour the recipient, they also promote mycology by helping to advance young mycologists. The accomplishments that we celebrate can be no greater than the pool of nominees. We encourage everyone in the IMA to take the time to consider candidates and initiate nominations for the upcoming IMC10. Note, also, that the award includes 500 €.

The IMA has established six IMA Young Mycologist Awards to mark outstanding research accomplishment by young mycologists from each of the six IMA Regional Mycological Organizations.

• Ethel Mary Doidge Medal — African Regional Mycological Member Organization

• Keisuke Tubaki Medal — Asian Regional Mycological Member Organization

• Daniel McAlpine Medal — Australasian Regional Mycological Member Organization

• Elias Magnus Fries Medal — European Regional Mycological Member Organization

• Carlos Luis Spegazzini Medal — Latin American Regional Mycological Member Organization

• Arthur Henry Reginald Buller Medal — North American Regional Mycological Member Organization

Eligibility

To be eligible to be nominated for an IMA Young Mycologist Award, a member of the IMA must, at the time of the next International Mycological Congress, be within ten years of his or her PhD degree, e.g. for IMC10 in 2014, a nominee must have received his or her PhD degree no earlier than 2004.

Establishment of Award Regional Committees

The President of each IMA Regional Mycological Member Organization is asked to establish an IMA Young Mycologist Award Regional Committee consisting of at least two members (although the appointment of more members to represent the diversity of mycology in the region is encouraged) and a chair, who will serve from one International Mycological Congress to the next. To ensure a broad pool of nominees, nine months prior to the next International Mycological Congress, this committee will notify the members of the IMA Regional Mycological Member Organization of the award, solicit nominations and vote to select a candidate. To ensure a breadth of experience on the IMA Young Mycologist Award Regional Committee, the chair and members of this committee should be senior mycologists with distinguished records and should represent the diversity of Mycological Member Organizations and Sustaining Mycological Member Organizations from the region. The chair will vote only in the event of a tie vote by the other members.

Responsibilities of the Award Regional Committees

• (1) Nine months prior to the next International Mycological Congress and three months prior to the deadline for receiving nominations, members of each IMA Regional Mycological Member Organization shall be notified of the call for nominations for the relevant IMA Young Mycologist Award through the IMA website and the IMA Regional Mycological Member Organization website and through emails sent to delegates from the region who attended the preceding International Mycological Congress.

• (2) Nomination of candidates for each IMA Young Mycologist Award shall consist of a letter of nomination, two letters of support from mycologists familiar with the candidate, and a current curriculum vitae of the candidate. Candidates are expected to have contributed appreciably to mycology and they should have achieved international recognition based on several criteria: (a) The quality, innovation, thoroughness, and impact on science of their published research, with consideration given to the contribution of the nominee to multi-authored publications. (b) Service as editors of journals or as officers of societies. (c) Membership on national or international policy committees. (d) Invitations to present research at national or international meetings.

• (3) The committee will forward the nomination material for each nominee and the committee’s choice for the award to the IMA Young Mycologist Awards Committee convened by the IMA President no more than one month following the deadline for nominations and no less than five months prior to the next IMC. The IMA Young Mycologist Awards Committee is charged with ratifying the choices made by the IMA Young Mycologist Award Regional Committees.

To reiterate, the timeline for the IMA Young Mycologist Awards for IMC 2014 is as follows. The notification to the members of the call for nominations shall be nine months prior to the IMC [1 November 2013], the deadline for receipt of nominations by the IMA Young Mycologist Award Regional Committees shall be six months prior to the IMC [1 February 2014], and the receipt of the IMA Young Mycologist Award Regional Committee’s choice by the IMA Young Mycologist Awards Committee shall be five months prior to the IMC [1 March 2014]. In this way, recipients can be notified of their award at least four months prior to the IMC to encourage their attendance at the IMC.

Presentation of the IMA Young Mycologist Awards

The IMA Young Mycologist Awards for IMC9 and IMC10 will be presented by the President of the IMA at the Closing Ceremony of the International Mycological Congress. They shall consist of a certificate and 500 €.

In Memoriam

Emory Guy Simmons (1920–2013)

It is with sadness that we have to report the death on 3 June 2013 of one of the key players in the establishment of the IMA. Emory chaired the formal committee with representatives from 16 countries that formulated the resolution approved by IMC1 in Exeter in 1971. He then chaired and was the power behind IMC2 in Tampa (FL) in 1977 which truly launched the Association. He was always there as a source of wise counsel to officers of the Association, and his special place in the history of the IMA was recognized by his being made one of the IMA’s four Honorary Presidents at IMC7 in Oslo in 2002. His history of the IMA (IMA Fungus 1: 18–100, 2010) characteristically belies his personal and ongoing behind-the-scenes rôle.

Emory Simmons reading his personal copy of Stearn’s Botanical Latin.

Emory was born on 12 April 1920 in Hillsboro (Fountain County, IN, USA), and served in the US Army (1942–1945) in campaigns in North Africa and Italy where he had a special role as a combat photographer. After the war, Emory returned to Indiana where he attended DePauw University (Greencastle) and received an MA in 1946 for a thesis on the “stromatic Sphaeriales” of the state. He then moved to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor where he used cultures on different media to investigate variability and establish sexual- asexual-morph connections for a PhD supervised by Lewis E. Wehmeyer (1897–1971). After completing his degree in 1950, and a spell as an instructor at Dartmouth College (NH), in 1953 he moved to the US Army Quartermaster Culture Collection as Head of the Mycology Group, Research Microbiologist, and then Director of the collection (1953–1974). From 1954, the collection was located in the US Army Laboratories at Natick (MA). The unit had a particular interest in the biodegradation of fabrics, and strains with strong cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic properties were discovered, some of which remain of major biotechnological importance and cited in various patents; these included Trichoderma reesei which he published, controversially, in the Abstracts volume for IMC2 in 1977.

The Quartermaster Collection suffered a “reduction-in-force” in 1974, and Emory retired from the government and moved to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (MA) along with the collection and a US Army grant. In Amherst he became close colleagues of mycologists Howard H. Bigelow (1923–1987) and his wife Margaret E. Barr Bigelow (1923–2008). In 1977 the cultures were transferred to the USDA Northern Regional Research Laboratory (NRRL, Peoria, IL), though not all survived. In 1987 Emory returned to Indiana where he continued his research, developed his consultancy work, and acted as an advisor for postgraduate theses not only in the US but a wide range of countries. He had a basement laboratory at his home in Crawfordsville, with a work area delimited by shelves with cloth-bound laboratory notebooks and other books, and drawers with an extensive slide collection. It was from here that the bulk of his series “Alternaria themes and variations” (with 335 numbers) emanated, and where the stupendous 775 page Alternaria: an identification manual [CBS Biodiversity Series no. 6, 2007] was prepared. His line drawings and detailed descriptions can only be marveled at, and he was able to see much of his careful observation-based taxonomic work being vindicated by molecular-phylogenetic approaches.

Emory greatly enjoyed travelling and teaching, and made numerous overseas visits to mycological centres in Europe and also many tropical countries. Thailand was a particular favourite, for the food as well as the people, where he had close links with BIOTEC and Kasetsart University, last visiting in 2009. He received an honorary doctorate from that university in 1988, directly from the hand of Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX), the King of Thailand. He was thrilled at the prospect of IMC10 being held in Bangkok this year, and it is sad that desire was not to be fulfilled.

Emory had numerous honours bestowed on him, and he held all the offices of the Mycological Society of America (MSA) at different times — and received the MSA’s Distinguished Mycologist Award in 1990. In addition to his life-time appointment as one of the Honorary Presidents of the IMA in 2002, he was the second recipient of the Ainsworth Medal at IMC9 (2010) for “truly extraordinary service to world mycology.”

He had a long association with the Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures (CBS) and in 2008 he was presented with the first Johanna Westerdijk Award for outstanding contributions to the CBS collections, to which he donated thousands of strains.

Emory’s warmth, generosity, and frankness will be missed by all whose mycological and personal lives he touched, but in a way he lives on through the IMA which he helped spawn, his enormous contribution to the systematics of Alternaria and allied fungi, and generous bequests to six mycological groups with which he was affiliated.

[Abstracted in part from the obituary prepared by Meredith Blackwell, Mary Palm, Amy Rossman, and Pedro W. Crous for Mycologia, and currently in press.]

Rolf Santesson (1916–2013)

On 17 September 2013, lichenology lost its foremost systematist of the 20^th century. Rolf was born in Trollhättan in western Sweden on 19 April 1916. As a schoolboy he made contact with one of the leading lichenologists of the day in Sweden, Gunnar Degelius (1903–1993), and then went on to study at the Växtbiologiska Institutionen in Uppsala, where he came under the influence of G. Einer DuRietz (1895–1967) and prepared a seminal work on lichen zonation on lake shores which was published in 1939, before moving on to wrestle with the taxonomy of some seashore pyrenocarpous species. Rolf spent 1939–41 collecting lichens in southernmost South America as a member of the Regnell expedition, turning his focus from an ecological to a taxonomic one as he grappled with identifications. He worked at the Naturhistorischen Rijksmuseum in Stockholm until 1946, when he moved to the University of Uppsala and started to devote his energies to foliicolous lichens, which had hardly been investigated at that time, resulting in the meticulously produced 590-page Foliicolous Lichens I in 1952. In the course of this work, Rolf became much-involved in how lichens should be classified. At the 7^th International Botanical Congress in Stockholm in 1950, no-doubt influenced by contact with Johan A. F. Nannfeldt (1904–1985) who was also in Uppsala, Rolf presented a paper on the integration of lichen-forming fungi into the overall fungal system. He was subsequently largely responsible for getting the proposal that names given to lichens should be applied to their fungal partners adopted by the 8^th Congress in Paris in 1954. Never one to step back from a challenge, Rolf increasingly turned his attention to lichenicolous fungi, on which he was almost the only worker worldwide for many years. He also recognized that a single genus could include both lichenized species and ones which were not in a short note in 1967.

Rolf Santesson at IMC4, Regensburg, 1990. Photo D.L. Hawksworth.

Rolf returned to Stockholm in 1973 where he remained until his retirement in 1982. With a deep knowledge of nomenclature and the lichenological literature, Rolf was the natural choice to prepare the lichen entries for Index Nominum Genericorum (Plantarum), published in 1979, though he was reluctant to have his name linked to them as he knew not all were perfect! It was then back to the university in Uppsala, and freer of administration, he published The Lichens of Sweden and Norway (1984). This was an annotated checklist which he “hesitated in publishing” being “fully aware of its shortcomings”, but which included a wealth of critical nomenclatural and taxonomic details. Lichenicolous fungi were added in a new edition in 1993, and the geographical scope extended in the co-authored Lichen-forming and Lichenicolous Fungi of Fennoscandia (2004).

He was always very happy in the field, discovering, teaching, and collecting, and his specimens were always beautifully presented and meticulously labelled. He continued Malme’s Lichenes Austroamericani exsiccate (1954), and later distributed Fungi lichenicoli exsiccati (1984–2001).

His 70^th and 80^th birthdays were marked by a dedicated journal issue (Lichenologist 18: 301–328, 1986) and a Festschrift (Tibell L, Hedberg O, Symbolae Botanicae Upsalienses 32 (1), 1997), respectively, and the 95^th by greetings in this journal (IMA Fungus 2: (11), 2011). Rolf’s other honours include the Acharius Medal of the International Association for Lichenology, presented in 1992. He kept active until his last years, checking proofs of his last paper (Hawksworth DL et al., IMA Fungus 2: 71–79, 2011) in his 95^th year with the aid of a hand lens, because of failing eyesight.

Throughout his life, Rolf was a constant source of advice, encouragement, and inspiration to lichenologists around the world, although he did not suffer fools gladly. My first exchanges with him were by letter in 1967, when he warned me that Alectoria (then including Bryoria) was a difficult genus — how right he was! He disliked macrolichen genera being split into smaller ones in the 1970s and 1980s. During the 12^th International Botanical Congress in St Petersburg (then Leningrad) in 1975, when shown the data “Ernie” M. Brodo and myself had compiled to support recognizing four alectorioid genera, he commented: “I do not like all these new genera, but in this case, I think Yes!” I feel privileged and honoured to have known, and from time to have published with, this truly remarkable and inspirational man.

Biographies

Edred John Henry Corner (1906–1997)

My Father in his Suitcase: in search of E. J. H. Corner the relentless botanist. By John K. Corner. 2013. Singapore: Landmark Books. Pp. xvi + 431, illustr. ISBN 978981-4189-47-7. Price US$ 27.27, SGD 35.42.

”Corner” is a name familiar to mycologists, especially those concerned with tropical macromycetes, but he was much more than that. He critically examined his finds, both macro- and microscopically, and meticulously drew what he observed. In 1929 he recognized that the form of the tissue in discomycete exciples was a key character in their classification, and in 1932 reported on different hyphal systems present in polypore basidiomes — all features which were to assume great importance in future decades. He also appreciated that the Coal Measures could not have formed had lignolytic white-rot fungi evolved by the Carboniferous, and that different sporophore types could occur in the same taxonomic group. With such mycological innovations and insights behind him, as well as a succession of major monographs on tropical and other basidiomycetes, it was fitting that he was one of the two recipients of the first de Bary Medal of the IMA in 1996. Yet it often comes as a surprise to aspiring mycologists when they discover that he also monographed figs, produced standard works on palms and Malaysian trees, two volumes of drawings of the seeds of tropical plant, and had a novel theory on how fruits of flowering plants evolved — the Durian Theory of 1949 that spawned often emotive arguments amongst traditional botanists. In 1967 he stated that “we must turn to the facts of nature and rediscover the truth”. Yet information on many aspects of the life of this remarkable and endlessly inquisitive and independent scientist have remained something of mystery and speculation.

Corner’s house in the Singapore Botanical Gardens, March 2013. Photo N. Arnold.

That was even true of his estranged son, John “Kay” Corner, who left home aged 19 years in 1960, never to see his father again. But amongst the things his father left when he died, was a suitcase with a note that it was to be given to his son “wherever he may be”. The case was delivered, and moved from house to house with his son for six years, but remained unopened until 2006. It contained numerous photographs, letters, and other mementoes and personal items, evidently carefully selected over many decades. His son started to uncover the father he never really knew, supplementing the contents with information he could obtain from those who had known his father and any other source he could locate.

The result is this major biography which traces Corner’s life from childhood through school and university to the Singapore Botanical Gardens, where he was Assistant Director from 1927–46, and had a house in the Garden (pictured above). This period included the Japanese occupation from 1942, during which he avoided prison and worked closely with the Japanese soldier/professor Marquis Yoshichika Tokugawa¹ who was made responsible for the Gardens. He was labelled as a collaborator by some, but evidently put conserving the collections and continuing his scientific endeavours first. After the war, he obtained a position heading a UNESCO project in Amazonia from 1946–48; apparently facilitated by Julian S. Huxley (1887–1975) whom I did not know previously had been a friend. In 1939 Corner had married an American woman, but she, and her son were evacuated from Singapore in 1942 and they were apart for extended periods. Amazonia was a particular strain on the relationship, and even after Corner obtained a position at the University of Cambridge in 1949, difficulties continued and they were divorced in 1952.

The book is packed with information and comments from Corner’s own letters, as well as an enormous range of people who interacted with Corner at different times, some of which have fascinating insights into the man and his life. Not least amongst these is the sound of him late at night in his tent in the tropical forests chewing, then spitting out uttering expletives, pieces of mushrooms he was documenting; a story since corroborated to me by Gathorne, Earl of Cranbrook, who studied under Corner at Cambridge and accompanied him on expeditions. And of course there is the training of monkeys to collect the flowers and fruits of tropical trees … . and their bites. There is a full list of publications, where one can only marvel at the range of topics, and notes on his research students. These included some of the most distinguished botanists of our time: Peter Ashton, John Dransfield, David G. Frodin, Vernon H. Heywood, David Mabberley, and Timothy Whitmore. His numerous awards and medals are detailed, including in 1985 the first International Prize for Biology, initiated by the Japanese as there was no Nobel Prize for biology.

Corner was not often seen at mycological meetings or expeditions outside the tropics, and while I was fired with enthusiasm for botany and mycology when The Life of Plants (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson) appeared in 1967², as I am sure many other students were, I did not meet this lumininary until I visited him at his home in Great Shelford, near Cambridge, in 1992. He was, therefore, not well known on a personal basis by many mycologists, although he was a great correspondent and quick to point out what he considered errors in the work of others until his sight started to fail.

What emerges in this biography is the picture of a man single-mindedly devoted to science, putting that above everything else, not least his family. This cannot have been any easy journey for his son to make, and is perhaps why the suitcase was left unopened for so long. But the result is a book that really brings the person, as opposed to just the scientist, to life, and one with much to reflect on. Do get hold of a copy if you have the chance, and do not be put off by the omission of “and mycologist” at the end of the subtitle. It should have been there, and you will find this a book difficult to put down.

V. B. Hosagoudar

V. B. Hosagoudar has been one of the world’s most prolific documenters of novel foliicolous microfungi. An analysis of the MycoBank database reveals that he has described 758 new species to date (Vincent Robert, pers. comm.), placing him amongst the top ten mycologists worldwide in this regard. His focus has been the Western Ghats in India, but he has also worked in other regions of the subcontinent, including the Andaman Islands. On the occasion of his retirement in May from the Jawaharial Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute in Palode, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, Hosagoudar has provided an overview of his investigations, compiled from 391 publications covering the years 1983–2012. These extend to 390 titles, including several books on meliolinaceous and asterinaceous fungi. The major part of the work comprises tabulations of the 2084 fungal taxa he reported, together with host plants and localities, all referenced back to the primary publication. His host list extends to an amazing 2969 plant species. Hosagoudar really has to be congratulated on his lifetime contribution to the documentation of fungal diversity in India, which not only reveals its richness, but shows what a single person with drive and a mission can achieve — even in the absence of molecular facilities. IMA Fungus wishes him a most pleasant and long retirement.

V. B. Hosagoudar. Photo courtesy V. B. Hosagoudar.

David Moore

David Moore at the controls of Concorde. Photo courtesy D. Moore.

Although David retired from the University of Manchester in 2009, he has continued ro write and edit mycological books, including Slayers, Saviors, Servants, and Sex (Moore 2001), the major textbook Century Guidebook to Fungi (with GD Robson and APJ Trinci 2011; see IMA Fungus 2: (62), 2011) and the stimulating and challenging Fungal Biology in the Origin and Emergence of Life (2013; see IMA Fungus 4: (23), 2013). David’s primary research has been concerned with morphogenesis in mushrooms, including genetics and later mathematical-modelling. The mushroom now known as Coprinopsis cinereus was the main object of his research. Its role in David’s life is reflected in the title of his personal autobiography (Moore 2013), which “also turned out to be a biography of” that fungus. Indeed, this is an autobiography in which David’s science is centre-stage rather than his university career or family life. The one exception is the penultimate six-page chapter on education in schools and raising public awareness, something into which David has put an enormous amount of energy through publications, “road-shows”, and the provision of internet sites with an amazing amount of information of value to students and teachers alike, appropriately known as “fungi4schools” (https://doi.org/www.davidmoore.or.uk). There are also boxes with extracts from reviews of his earlier books, and an extensive bibliography; “DOI” identifiers are provided for the majority of the publications, and those authored by him are indicated to be available through his website.

This book doubles as an introduction to the growth of our understanding of developmental processes in mushrooms, and leaves room perhaps for a future companion autobiography covering David’s time as Secretary of the British Mycological Society and Senior/Executive Editor of Mycological Research as he nurtured its evolution from the Transactions — and more on his outreach activities.