1. William Alphonso Murrill was an American mycologist, known for his contributions to the knowledge of the Agaricales and Polyporaceae.
14 Facts About William Murrill
1. 2.
William Murrill traveled along the East Coast, Pacific Coast, Mexico and the Caribbean.
3.
William Murrill went on annual collecting trips to Mexico, the Caribbean, Europe, and South America, sometimes, without informing any of his colleagues prior.
4.
William Murrill might have issued an exsiccata series under the title Polyporaceae of North America.
5.
For eight months in 1924, William Murrill went on another trip to Europe but seemed to disappear; no one was even sure if he was still alive.
6.
The Garden filled his position; it was later discovered that William Murrill had a kidney condition and was actually in a rural French hospital during these eight months, unable to send word back to his wife or the NYBG.
7.
When he finally returned to New York, William Murrill was upset to learn that he had no job.
8.
William Murrill's wife, feeling neglected, divorced him during this time.
9.
William Murrill spent the rest of the spring, and into the summer, recovering in the University of Florida Infirmary.
10.
William Murrill permanently relocated to Florida from Virginia, building a small house, and spending the last 34 years of his life there.
11.
William Murrill began collecting all over the campus and surrounding areas for the next 34 years of his life, describing many new species of fungi, of which 700 type-collections are deposited in the University of Florida Institute for Food and Agricultural Science's Fungal Herbarium.
12.
William Alphonso Murrill died at the age of 88 on December 25,1957, and along with him, the last surviving member of the early American Mycological Society.
13.
William Murrill started working as assistant curator at New York Botanical Garden herbarium and library in 1904, eventually becoming a curator.
14.
William Murrill had 510 publications, including mycological and botanical papers and notes, general notes, miscellaneous reports, reviews, biographies, and popular articles on natural history.