Daniel Stuntz

Daniel Elliot Stuntz (March 15, 1909 - March 5, 1983) was often called "Bud" by his family and colleagues. When Stuntz was young, his immediate and extended family moved from Ohio to Seattle. He had a sister named Alice Stuntz Marionneaux, whom he frequently visited in the later years. Stuntz's father, Chauncey Richards Stuntz, who worked in the sugarcane business, would be absent to work for most of the time. In 1920s, he was promoted as the general manager of a sugar mill, 'Jobabo' in Oriente Province in Cuba. During his father's absence, Stuntz' mother, Evelyn Elliot Stuntz, managed the family and arranged the children's summer vacations.

Education

Stuntz was born in Milford, Ohio, United States. Before he went to college, he studied in Queen Anne High School, Seattle. In autumn 1931, he enrolled at the University of Washington and received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1935. Stuntz began his undergraduate study as a forestry major. After taking a general mycology course offered by J. W. Hotson in the botany department, he developed an interest in fungi. Hence, he decided to change his major to Botany.

After he finished his bachelor's degree study, he began his master's degree with Dr. Hotson while working on '' Inocybe''. (Stuntz and Hotson 1938) He did not finish his master's degree; instead, he went to Yale University for his doctoral degree. His transfer was encouraged by Professor T. C. Frye, who viewed Stuntz as a potential replacement of Dr. Hotson, whose health was becoming problematic. Amazingly, John S. Boyce accepted Stuntz as a student and allowed him continue to do ''Inocybe'' research, which is not Dr. Boyce's expertise. Stunz finished his doctoral degree at Yale in 1940.

Career

The earliest record of Stuntz's research activities can be traced back to March 30, 1934, when he was a junior in college. By that time, he began to collect, photograph and describe agarics as well as other fungi. Later, Stuntz was influenced by Dr. Hotson to begin working on the agaric taxonomy. In addition, Alexander H. Smith was another person who had a great impact on Daniel's choice of profession. They met each other on the Olympic Mountains during collections and after that, they began a long friendship. Alex kept encouraging Stuntz to continue his work on ''Inocybe'' and other agaric genera, which laid the fundamental basis for Stuntz's taxonomy works in the future. Stuntz kept working on ''Inocybe'' during his master's and doctoral degree.

In 1940, after he finished his doctoral degree from Yale, he was hired as an instructor at the University of Washington. He retained this title until 1945 when he was promoted as an assistant professor and, later, in 1950 he became an associate professor. In 1958, he became a professor in the botany department and kept this title until he retired. At the beginning of his professional journey as a fungal taxonomist, he collected almost every agaric he could find. Later, due to teaching commitments, his collection was mainly limited to '' Pluteus'', ''Hebeloma'' and ''Inocybe''. Eventually, he spent all his efforts concentrating on ''Inocybe'' classification.

During his teaching process, Stuntz would collect almost every group of fungi he could find and try to identify it. He would write his own keys to his collections and a few of them were eventually published. One of his important publications was a book named ''How to identify mushrooms to Genus IV: keys to families and Genera'', published in 1977. (Stuntz 1977) During his last several years, he developed an interest in the resupinate, nonporoid