This month at #MycoBookClub we're going to be talking about one-time mycologist Beatrix Potter.

How did this remarkable woman find her way into mycology? Well, let's have a look at what she was reading...
In her biography of Beatrix Potter, Linda Lear relates that the Potters subscribed to 'Hardwicke's Science-Gossip'. A publication we have come across before at #MycoBookClub: brainchild of influential British mycologist M.C. Cooke and associates.

https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/35144831 
It is recorded that in 1886 Rupert Potter, Beatrix's father, purchased 'Hymenomycetes Britannici' by the Revd John Stevenson. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/20296583 

Serious stuff! Even by #MycoBookClub standards.
It is recorded that in 1886 Rupert Potter, Beatrix's father, purchased 'Hymenomycetes Britannici' by the Revd John Stevenson. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/20296583 Serious stuff! Even by #MycoBookClub standards.
It is recorded that in 1886 Rupert Potter, Beatrix's father, purchased 'Hymenomycetes Britannici' by the Revd John Stevenson. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/20296583 Serious stuff! Even by #MycoBookClub standards.
This volume was subsequently gifted to a mycological mentor of Beatrix Potter: Charles McIntosh, 'the Perthshire naturalist'.

Lear notes that, J.M. Berkeley's 'Outlines of British Fungology' would also have enlivened his interest in fungi. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/53609738 
This volume was subsequently gifted to a mycological mentor of Beatrix Potter: Charles McIntosh, 'the Perthshire naturalist'.Lear notes that, J.M. Berkeley's 'Outlines of British Fungology' would also have enlivened his interest in fungi. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/53609738 
This volume was subsequently gifted to a mycological mentor of Beatrix Potter: Charles McIntosh, 'the Perthshire naturalist'.Lear notes that, J.M. Berkeley's 'Outlines of British Fungology' would also have enlivened his interest in fungi. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/53609738 
James Sowerby's 'Coloured figures of English fungi or mushrooms' would have been an important source of reference for Potter. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/5751391 
James Sowerby's 'Coloured figures of English fungi or mushrooms' would have been an important source of reference for Potter. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/5751391 
James Sowerby's 'Coloured figures of English fungi or mushrooms' would have been an important source of reference for Potter. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/5751391 
Beatrix Potter's mycological illustrations are all the more remarkable in comparison with these standard reference works of her day.

See, for example, her rendering of Helvella crispa - https://flic.kr/p/jd2uSA  - one of her earliest watercolours depicting fungi. Via @CPKMuseums.
Hydnum repandum, Helvella crispa

This is one of the earliest known examples of Potter's fungi studies in existence. It was painted the year after Beatrix's father, Rupert Potter, had made a gift to Charlie McIntosh of the 2 volumes...

https://flic.kr/p/jd2uSA
It was the Kew fungologist George Massee, subject of last month's #MycoBookClub, who recommended to Beatrix Potter that she read Brefeld's 'Botanische Untersuchungen über Schimmelpilze'. In German. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/33609731 

(Which she did...)
It was the Kew fungologist George Massee, subject of last month's #MycoBookClub, who recommended to Beatrix Potter that she read Brefeld's 'Botanische Untersuchungen über Schimmelpilze'. In German. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/33609731 (Which she did...)
It was the Kew fungologist George Massee, subject of last month's #MycoBookClub, who recommended to Beatrix Potter that she read Brefeld's 'Botanische Untersuchungen über Schimmelpilze'. In German. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/33609731 (Which she did...)
Doubtless this volume would have informed her own microscopic studies, 'On the germination of spores of agaricineae'.

You can see some of Beatrix Potter's illustrations of the microscopic features of fungi on the @ArmittMuseum website: http://armitt.com/armitt_website/beatrix-potter/
Beatrix Potter Armitt Museum and Library Cumbria

The Beatrix Potter Collection at the Armitt, includes 250 studies of fungi, 40 natural history studies, 140 microscopic drawings and 30 archaeological drawings.

http://armitt.com/armitt_website/beatrix-potter/
We'll be talking about Beatrix Potter - writer, illustrator, mycologist - at #MycoBookClub on Tuesday 2 February, from 7:30pm (UK time).

Join us! Here on Twitter.

Illustration of Hygrocybe coccinea by Beatrix Potter. Public domain image courtesy of @ArmittMuseum
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