Charles Stewart Parker (1882 - 1950) was head of the Department of Botany at

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a private, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity" and accredited by the Middle States Commissi ...

(1932 to 1948). He carried out the first systematic study of American species of the fungal genus ''

Hypholoma ''Hypholoma'' is a genus of fungi which are quite well known due to the commonness of sulphur tuft (''Hypholoma fasciculare'') on stumps in temperate woodlands. Species in this genus are easily recognizable because the dark spores create a dis ...

'' and also collected over 2000 plant specimens, including several new species.

Personal life and education

Parker was born March 31, 1882, in

Corinne, Utah Corinne ( ) is a town in Box Elder County, Utah, United States. The population was 685 at the 2010 census. Geography Corinne is located in southeastern Box Elder County, on the west side of the Bear River. It is the last town on the river bef ...

, but grew up in West Central, Spokane, Washington, USA.Bailey, L.H., compiler. RUS: Rural Uplook Service,a register of the rural leadership in the United States and Canada. 1920 editio

/ref> His father was a barber and the founder and publisher of a local newspaper, The Citizen. He attended South Central High School in Spokane, and then Trinity College, Oakland and Washington State College. He taught at the Booker T Washington Institute. During the first World War, Parker joined the US Army and was commissioned as Lieutenant. He served in Europe for over 10 months, including Germany after it surrendered. He gained BS (1923) and MS (1929) degrees in botany from the department of plant pathology at Washington State University, State College, Washington. In 1932 he received his Ph.D. in plant pathology from

Pennsylvania State College The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a public state-related land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvania. Founded in 1855 as the Farmers' High School of Pennsylvania, Penn State became ...

working with

Lee Oras Overholts Lee Oras Overholts (23 June 1890 – 10 November 1946) was an American mycologist known for his expertise on polypore fungi. Personal life Lee Oras Overholts was born in Camden, Ohio and attended Miami University, where he received a Bachelor ...

and he then taught in several high schools and colleges. He was married. He died January 10, 1950, in Seattle, Washington, aged 68.

Career

From 1923 to 1924, Parker was employed by the US Bureau of Plant Industry as a plant pathologist in the Western District of North Carolina. He was appointed to Howard University in 1931 and from 1932 to 1948 he was Head of the Department of Botany. He introduced the department's first Masters programme in 1930. Among the students who studied botany at Howard University at this time was Marie Clark Taylor who succeeded him as departmental chair in 1947. In 1933 he joined the

American Association of University Professors The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is an organization of professors and other academics in the United States. AAUP membership includes over 500 local campus chapters and 39 state organizations. The AAUP's stated mission is ...

and he was also a member of the

Mycological Society of America The Mycological Society of America (MSA) is a learned society that serves as the professional organization of mycologists in the U.S. and Canada. It was founded in 1932. The Society's constitution states that "The purpose of the Society is to promo ...

. He retired in June 1947 and was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus. As a mycologist, he specialised in the taxonomy of the

Basidiomycota Basidiomycota () is one of two large divisions that, together with the Ascomycota, constitute the subkingdom Dikarya (often referred to as the "higher fungi") within the kingdom Fungi. Members are known as basidiomycetes. More specifically, Basi ...

, especially ''Hypholoma'', where he provided the first systematic treatment of species found in the USA. In the 1920s and 1930s he collected over 2000 plant specimens from the Washington, Idaho and Mid-Atlantic regions that formed the basis of the herbarium at Howard University, and which is now named after him (Charles S. Parker Herbarium). This included the type specimens of three new species.

Publications

*Harold St. John and Charles S. Parker (1925
A tetramerous species, section, and subgenus of ''Carex''.
''American Journal of Botany'' 12 63–68 *Charles S. Parker (1933
A Taxonomic Study of the Genus Hypholoma in North America.
''Mycologia'' 25 160–212

Awards and honors

The flower species ''Lathryus parkeri'' (H.St.John) was named after him and subsequently merged into ''

Lathyrus nevadensis ''Lathyrus nevadensis'', the Sierra pea or purple peavine, is a perennial plant, perennial herb with erect to vine, climbing stems, native to the forests and clearings of western North America from British Columbia to northern California and as f ...

'' var. parkeri. (H.St.John) C.L.Hitchc.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parker, Charles S 1950 deaths People from Spokane, Washington 20th-century American botanists United States Army personnel of World War I Pennsylvania State University alumni Howard University faculty Mycologists American mycologists 1882 births