Petter Adolf Karsten was a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 mycologist

Mycology

Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy and their use to humans as a source for tinder, medicinals , food and entheogens, as well as their dangers, such as poisoning or...

, the foremost expert on the fungi of Finland in his day, and known in consequence as the "father of Finnish mycology".

Karsten was born in Merimasku

Merimasku

Merimasku is a former municipality of Finland. It was, together with Rymättylä and Velkua, consolidated with the town of Naantali on January 1, 2009.It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Finland Proper region...

 near Turku

Turku

Turku is a city situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It is located in the region of Finland Proper. It is believed that Turku came into existence during the end of the 13th century which makes it the oldest city in Finland...

, studied at the University of Helsinki

University of Helsinki

The University of Helsinki is a university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but was founded in the city of Turku in 1640 as The Royal Academy of Turku, at that time part of the Swedish Empire. It is the oldest and largest university in Finland with the widest range of disciplines available...

, and then moved to the inland of Tammela

Tammela

Tammela is a municipality of Finland. The first mention of a village named Tammela was in documents from 1423.It is located in the province of Southern Finland and is part of the Tavastia Proper region. The municipality has a population of and it covers an area of of which is inland water...

, where he spent most of his life with teaching botany and doing research at the Mustiala Agriculture Institute (now the Faculty of Agriculture of the HAMK University of Applied Sciences

HAMK University of Applied Sciences

HAMK University of Applied Sciences offers students a multidisciplinary learning environment that is highly networked with the surrounding world of industry and commerce....

).

He amassed a vast collection, both by his own efforts and those of his correspondents, and named about 200 new genera

Genera

Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...

 and 2,000 new species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

. In his mycological studies he extensively used the microscope and can be considered as the pioneer of fungal microscopy. Karstenia, the international journal of mycology published by the Finnish Mycological Society, is dedicated to Karsten.