Victor Fayod

Victor Fayod (23 November 1860 – 28 April 1900) was a Swiss mycologist who created an influential novel classification of the agaric fungi and described a number of new genera and species.

The standard author abbreviation Fayod is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[1]

Biographical overview

Fayod was born on 23 November 1860 in Salaz, a small locality close to the municipality of Bex in the Swiss canton of Vaud. He was a grandson of a famous Swiss geologist, Johann von Charpentier.[2] After attending school in Bex and Lausanne, he studied mathematics and later silviculture at the polytechnic institute ETH Zurich. He was strongly interested in botany and mycology, but his work in those areas had to be conducted in a private capacity.[3][4][5]

Fayod worked with German botanist Heinrich Anton de Bary in Strasbourg from 1881 to 1882. He then worked as a tutor. He worked in a series of biology-related jobs in Bad Cannstatt, Normandy, Nervi, the Valli Valdesi (a region of the Cottian Alps), and Genoa. He also assisted French bacteriologist André Chantemesse in Paris. After working in a dental laboratory in Paris in 1890, he decided to take on dentistry as a less precarious, alternative career and became qualified as a dental surgeon at the Paris Faculty of Medicine. However, health problems soon caused him to return to Switzerland and his illness continued until his death on 28 April 1900.[6]

Scientific achievements

Fayod learned French, German, and Italian and published scientific papers in all three languages. A bibliography of his work can be found in the reference authored by the Swiss Academy of Natural Science.[6]

He recognized the influence of Darwinism on botany and devised a new classification of gilled fungi, based for the first time on microscopic features such as basidia, cystidia, and spores.[7] He presented this classification in his most important work, Prodrome d'une histoire naturelle des agaricinées (Prodrome of a Natural History of the Agarics), in which he proposed some new generic designations which are still in use today: Agrocybe, Cystoderma, Delicatula, Omphalotus, Pholiotina, and Schinzinia. These genera, which bear his name as originating author, are the main reason that Fayod is still remembered. Some of them are well-known, containing common species, whilst others are less so. He also proposed many other new genus names which are no longer in use today.[8]

Fayod's work focused primarily on the Hymenomycetes. One major outcome of his research was his description of spore discharge in the basidiomycetes, which involves the formation of a drop of liquid.[4][5] He left a collection of biological illustrations and other items which are preserved in the Conservatoire and Botanical Gardens of Geneva.[7]

The genus Fayodia (of fungi in the family Tricholomataceae), was named in his honour in 1930,[9] as was the species Pluteus fayodii (which may be identical to the similar species Pluteus leoninus).[10]

References

  1. ^ International Plant Names Index.  Fayod.
  2. ^ The tiny locality Salaz, where Fayod was born, is in the commune of Ollon, and not in the better known village of Bex, though very close. See the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences article, where "Salaz" is mis-spelt.
  3. ^ "Victor Fayod". Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz. Retrieved 15 February 2014.
  4. ^ a b Money NP. (2002). Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard: The Mysterious World of Mushrooms, Molds, and Mycologists. Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-515457-6.
  5. ^ a b Monthoux, Olivier (1986). "The year of Victor Fayod" Musées de Genève 27(261): 3–6 (in French).
  6. ^ a b Prof. Ed. Fischer (1900). "Victor Fayod 1860 - 1900". Verhandlungen der Schweizerischen Naturforschenden Gesellschaft. 83: XXXII–XXXVI. Retrieved 15 February 2014. This article of the journal "Acts of the Swiss Academy of Natural Sciences" ("Actes de l'Académie suisse des sciences naturelles") is also available in French. The paper includes a list of Fayod's published works.
  7. ^ a b "Herbier Fayod". Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques Ville de Genève. Retrieved 1 March 2014.
  8. ^ Fayod, V. (1889). "Prodrome d'une histoire naturelle des Agaricinés". Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Botanique. Série 7 (in French). 9: 181–411, 365. The Gallica URL given allows download of the relevant sequence of pages through the "Télécharger" link. Fayod's approval of Darwinism is evident for instance from his introduction, including the first page (page 181).
  9. ^ Kirk PM, Cannon PF, Minter DW, Stalpers JA (2008). Dictionary of the Fungi (10th ed.). Wallingford, UK: CABI. p. 254. ISBN 978-0-85199-826-8.
  10. ^ These and other assertions related to fungus species and genera can be checked using Index Fungorum.