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 taxonomy, genetics, biochemical properties, and use by humans. Fungi can be a source of tinder, food, traditional medicine, as well as entheogens, poison, and ...

Background and education

C.E. Broome was born in

Berkhamsted Berkhamsted ( ) is a historic market town in Hertfordshire, England, in the River Bulbourne, Bulbourne valley, north-west of London. The town is a Civil parishes in England, civil parish with a town council within the borough of Dacorum which ...

, the son of a solicitor. He was privately schooled in

Kensington Kensington is an area of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, around west of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensingt ...

and in 1832 was sent to read for Holy Orders with the curate of

Swaffham Prior Swaffham Prior is a small village in East Cambridgeshire, England. Lying 5 miles west of Newmarket, Suffolk, Newmarket, and two miles south west of Burwell, Cambridgeshire, Burwell, the village is often paired with its neighbour Swaffham Bulbe ...

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...

. "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, colloquially "Tit Hall" ) is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1350, it is th ...

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 with rigid sides used for the storage or transportation of its contents. Most boxes have flat, parallel, rectangular sides (typically rectangular prisms). Boxes can be very small (like a matchbox) or v ...

, 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 ...

, 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. 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 List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

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

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

and

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

. His particular interest was in

truffles A truffle is the fruiting body of a subterranean ascomycete fungus, one of the species of the genus ''Tuber''. More than one hundred other genera of fungi are classified as truffles including '' Geopora'', '' Peziza'', '' Choiromyces'', and ' ...

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 collec ...

in 1866. The fungal genera '' Broomeia'' 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 scientists 19th-century British botanists

Background and education

Researches in mycology

Selected publications

See also

References