Flora, Fauna and ... Funga? | Undark Magazine
“Government, people, institutions still think of biodiversity in terms of ‘flora and fauna,’” says David Minter, president of the European Mycological Association. “And that, of course, absolutely excludes fungi — it’s so pervasive.”
Read the Article | Undark Magazine | Jonathan Moens
Every science has a “father” ( because we want it to be this way ?) and in case of mycology some assign this role to Pier Antonio Micheli (1679-1737), an italian botanist who was the first to point that fungi have the reproductive bodies od spores. Published in 1729, his book Noua plantarum genera was a transformative step in the knowledge of fungi.
“Micheli's Nova plantarum generum of 1729 revolutionized the study of fungus. In this work he included information on "the planting, origin and growth of fungi, mucors, and allied plants". He described 1900 plants, 1400 for the first time. Among these were 900 fungi and lichens, represented in no less than 73 plates. Micheli was also the first to observe spores in all groups of fungi, to describe asci, and to culture fungi from spores.”
Book Images via Wikipedia Commons / Public Domain
Statue of Micheli among the gallery of famous Tuscans in the Loggiato of the Uffizi, sculpted by Vincenzo Costiani / Attribution 2.5 Generic (CC BY 2.5)