Ellis, Job Bicknell, 1829-1905

Job Bicknell Ellis (1829-1905) was an American mycologist best known for his work as a collector and classifier of fungal specimens. Ellis was born in Potsdam, New York and graduated from Union College in Schenectady in 1849. Influenced by the American mycologist Henry Ravenel, Ellis dedicated his life to the collection and exchange of dried specimens, or "exsiccati," creating reference collections sold in sets of one hundred. These "centuries" of fungi were published as Fungi Nova-Caesareenses (Fungi of New Jersey) in 1878 and the North American Fungi issued in series from 1878 to 1898. He published North American Pyrenomycetes in 1892 with Benjamin Matlock Everhart. In 1895 he and William A. Kellerman founded the Journal of Mycology, a forerunner to the publication Mycologia. In 1896 he sold his vast collection of fungi, numbering over 100,000 specimens, to the Cryptogamic Herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden.

From the description of Job Bicknell Ellis papers 1857-1903. (New York Botanical Garden). WorldCat record id: 42358819

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