William Alphonso Murrill (1869–1957) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 mycologist, known for his contributions to the knowledge of the Agaricales

Agaricales

The fungal order Agaricales, also known as gilled mushrooms , or euagarics, contains some of the most familiar types of mushrooms. The order has 33 extant families, 413 genera, and over 13000 described species, along with five extinct genera known only from the fossil record...

 and Polyporaceae

Polyporaceae

The Polyporaceae are a family of bracket fungi belonging to the Basidiomycota. The flesh of their fruiting bodies varies from soft to very tough. Most members of this family have their hymenium in vertical pores on the underside of the caps, but some of them have gills The Polyporaceae are a...

.

Education

Murrill obtained his Ph.D. at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 in 1897, working under the supervision of G.F. Atkinson, a leading authority on the taxonomy

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...

 of Basidiomycetes. He started working as assistant curator at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

's garden herbarium and library in 1904, eventually becoming a curator (1919–1925). He also worked at the University of Florida

University of Florida

The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...

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Publications

Murrill had 510 publications, including mycological and botanical papers and notes, general notes, miscellaneous reports, reviews, biographies, and popular articles on natural history.

External links

• William Alphonso Murrill, Chicago.il.us