Christopher Edmund Broome (24 July 1812 – 15 November 1886) was a British

mycologist Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy and their use to humans, including as a source for tinder, traditional medicine, food, and entheogens, as w ...

Background and education

C.E. Broome was born in

Berkhamsted Berkhamsted ( ) is a historic market town in Hertfordshire, England, in the Bulbourne valley, north-west of London. The town is a civil parish with a town council within the borough of Dacorum which is based in the neighbouring large new tow ...

, the son of a solicitor. He was privately schooled in Kensington and in 1832 was sent to read for Holy Orders with the curate of Swaffham Prior in

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

. "Conscientious scruples" prevented him from entering the ministry, however, and later the same year he enrolled at

Trinity Hall, Cambridge Trinity Hall (formally The College or Hall of the Holy Trinity in the University of Cambridge) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is the fifth-oldest surviving college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by ...

where he completed his degree in 1836. He married Charlotte Horman the following year and the couple lived at Rudloe Cottage, near

Box A box (plural: boxes) is a container used for the storage or transportation of its contents. Most boxes have flat, parallel, rectangular sides. Boxes can be very small (like a matchbox) or very large (like a shipping box for furniture), and ca ...

, then at Wraxall Lodge, Clifton, and finally (in 1848) at Elmhurst, near

Batheaston Batheaston is a village and civil parish east of the English city of Bath, on the north bank of the River Avon. The parish had a population of 2,735 in 2011. The northern area of the parish, on the road to St Catherine, is an area known as N ...

, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Researches in mycology

Broome became interested in natural history whilst at Swaffham Prior and later, with his friend G.H.K. Thwaites, in Clifton. He developed an expertise in fungi, sending many of his collections to the Rev.

M.J. Berkeley Miles Joseph Berkeley (1 April 1803 – 30 July 1889) was an English cryptogamist and clergyman, and one of the founders of the science of plant pathology. Life Berkeley was born at Biggin Hall, Benefield, Northamptonshire, and educated at R ...

. Together, Berkeley and Broome published a series of "Notices of British Fungi" over a 37-year period, jointly describing no less than 550 new species. The two mycologists also collaborated on descriptions of fungi collected in Sri Lanka by Thwaites and on collections from

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

, Australia. Broome published little on his own, mainly accounts of local fungi from

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lor ...

and

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershir ...

. His particular interest was in

truffles A truffle is the fruiting body of a subterranean ascomycete fungus, predominantly one of the many species of the genus ''Tuber''. In addition to ''Tuber'', many other genera of fungi are classified as truffles including '' Geopora'', '' Pezi ...

and truffle-like fungi, but he collected widely and carefully. On his death, his herbarium contained some 40,000 fungal specimens, which are now at the

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,10 ...

. His botanical specimens and library were willed to the Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution, where they remain. Broome became a fellow of the

Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature colle ...

in 1866. The fungal genera ''

Broomeia The Broomeiaceae are a family of fungi in the order Agaricales. The family is monotypic, and contains the single genus ''Broomeia'', described by English naturalist Miles Joseph Berkeley in 1844, and named for his collaborator, Christopher Edmund ...

'' and '' Broomella'' were named after him, together with over a dozen fungal species, including ''Nectriopsis broomeana'', ''Nitschkia broomeana'', ''Ramaria broomei'', and the truffle-like ''Melanogaster broomeanus''.

Selected publications

* Berkeley, M.J. & Broome, C.E. (1850). Notices of British fungi. ''Annals and Magazine of Natural History'' Ser. 2, 5: 455–466. * Berkeley, M.J. & Broome, C.E. (1871). The fungi of Ceylon. ''Journal of the Linnean Society Botany'' 11: 469–572. * Berkeley, M.J. & Broome, C.E. (1880). List of fungi from Brisbane, Queensland with descriptions of new species. ''Transactions of the Linnean Society of London'' Ser. 2, 1. * Broome, C.E. (1864). The fungi of Wiltshire. ''The Wiltshire archaeological and natural history magazine'' 8: 170–198. * Broome, C.E. (1870). Remarks on some of the fungi met with in the neighbourhood of Bath. ''Proceedings of the Bath Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club'' 2: 55–98.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Broome, Christopher Edmund English mycologists 1812 births 1886 deaths Fellows of the Linnean Society of London Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge 19th-century English people 19th-century British botanists

Background and education

Researches in mycology

Selected publications

See also

References