Note: It has been awhile since there has been a new post at here at Mycorant. I intended to keep it up starting last summer but a “mishap” knocked me out of commission for about six months. I’m back now.

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A number of years ago I wrote a short biography of mycologist Reginald Buller for The Mycophile. He is one of my all time favorites. I also published a shorter version at Suite101. But since that site is defunct, I figure maybe I should put it up here.

Mycologist Reginald Buller was born in England but spent his academic career in Canada. Noted for research in fungi, he was also known for his poems and limericks.

There appear to be no public domain images of Buller so I’ve used an illustration from one of his books just for the heck of it.

Arthur Henry Reginald Buller

Born in 1874 in Birmingham, England, R. G. H. Buller received his education and training in Birmingham, Leipzig, Munich and Naples. His acdemic life took place in Canada, but he traveled each summer back to England to either Kew or Birmingham.

“Transatlantic mycologist” might be the best way to describe Reginald Buller. He crossed the Atlantic by ship 65 times in his life. Once when asked what his hobbies were, he replied “billiards and crossing the Atlantic.”

Buller as Researcher and Teacher

Buller founded the Botany Department at the University of Manitoba in 1904. He continued working and teaching in Canada until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1936.

Buller’s enthusiasm for science was infectious. Both students and colleagues alike admired his speaking ability. He had a great sense of the history of mycology and collected enough material for a book on the subject, although it was never published.

Over the years, he became an expert on the fungi of western Canada and could name nearly all the native plants from the Winnipeg area and around his summer haunts in Britain. A man of broad interests, he took pleasure in discussing any area of science, but especially mycology.

R. G. H. Buller, a Physical Mycologist

Buller was very much a physical mycologist. His analyses of spore development and release are considered classic in the field. He was the first to study and accurately depict the tiny drop of liquid appearing at the base of a basidiospore prior to discharge. This structure is known as Buller’s Drop in his honor. Using puffball spores, he tested Stokes’ Law of free falling bodies.

Other areas in which Buller made notable contributions include slug and squirrel mycophagy, hyphal fusion, bioluminescence, cytoplasmic streaming, sounds emitted by discharging ascospores, the development and alignment of mushroom gills, and the mechanisms of fungal attachment to substrates.

Buller’s Publications and Honors

The most well known of Buller’s publications is certainly Researches on Fungi, appearing in seven volumes beginning in 1909, with the final edition published posthumously in 1950. These books, which can often be found in the libraries of major universities, are known not only for their scientific merit, but also for their highly readable style.

He received numerous honors and served as president of many distinguished societies including The Botanical Society of America, the British Mycological Society, the Royal Society of Canada, and the International Botanical Congress (Section VI).

Buller’s Humorous and Poetic Writings

Reginald possessed a sense of humor, which was reflected in his poems and limericks, some of which were published in the British magazine Punch. His excitement for science and love of nature is perhaps best reflected in the delightful, and sometimes reprinted 1903 poem “Pond Life”. If only one thing could be said about him, he probably would not mind being quoted from his last poem, written in 1943: “He was an ardent sporobolomycetologist!”

Buller never married, and lived in a hotel room most of the time. He spent many hours conducting fungal research in the laboratory, in the field, or in his quarters. He succumbed to a brain tumor in 1944.

Note: An earlier version of this article appeared in the Mycophile (V. 35:5, September/October, 1994), the newsletter of the North American Mycological Society.