The International Mycological Institute was a non-profit organisation, based in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, that undertook research and disseminated information on

fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...

, particularly plant pathogenic species causing crop diseases. It was established as the Imperial Bureau of Mycology at

Kew Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is a ...

in 1920 and amalgamated with

CAB International CABI (legally CAB International, formerly Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux) is a nonprofit intergovernmental development and information organisation focusing primarily on agricultural and environmental issues in the developing world, and the c ...

in 1998.

History

The Imperial Bureau of Mycology was established in 1920 as a centre for accumulating and disseminating information on plant pathogenic

in the British empire and for undertaking systematic research into such fungi. It was initially based in two houses at

, but in 1930 moved into a purpose-built building in the grounds of the Royal Botanic Gardens. In the same year, it became part of the Imperial Agricultural Bureaux and was renamed the Imperial Mycological Institute (IMI). IMI provided an identification service for pathogenic fungi from 1921 onwards and in 1922 started publishing abstracts of research literature in the ''Review of Applied Mycology''. An

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called ...

of fungal specimens was also established. The journal ''Index of Fungi'', covering all new fungal names, began in 1940 and the ''Bibliography of Systematic Mycology'' in 1947. In 1943, the first edition of the standard reference work, the ''Dictionary of the Fungi'' was published. A culture collection of living fungi was initiated in 1947. In 1948, IMI changed its name to the Commonwealth Mycological Institute and in 1986 to the International Mycological Institute. In 1993, it was moved from Kew to

Egham Egham ( ) is a university town in the Borough of Runnymede in Surrey, England, approximately west of central London. First settled in the Bronze Age, the town was under the control of Chertsey Abbey for much of the Middle Ages. In 1215, Magna ...

, Surrey, and in 1998 was assimilated by

. In 2010, the former IMI herbarium was merged with that of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Directors

*Sir

Edwin John Butler Sir Edwin John Butler (13 August 1874 – 4 April 1943) was an Irish mycologist and plant pathologist. He became the Imperial Mycologist in India and later the first director of the Imperial Bureau of Mycology in England. He was knighted in 1 ...

(1920–1935) * Sydney Francis Ashby (1935–1939) * Samuel Paul Wiltshire (1940–1956) * John Collier Frederick Hopkins (1956–1964) *

Geoffrey Clough Ainsworth Geoffrey Clough Ainsworth (9 October 1905 in Birmingham – 25 October 1998 in Derby) was a British mycologist and scientific historian. He was the older brother of Ruth Ainsworth. Education and work Ainsworth received his doctorate fr ...

(1964–1968) * Anthony Johnston (1968–1983) *

David Leslie Hawksworth David Leslie Hawksworth (born 1946 in Sheffield, UK) is a British mycologist and lichenologist currently with a professorship in the Universidad Complutense de Madrid in Madrid, Spain and also a Scientific Associate of The Natural History Muse ...

(1983–1997)

References

Biological research institutes in the United Kingdom Mycology organizations 1920 establishments in the United Kingdom Research institutes established in 1920 {{mycology-org-stub