Thomas Nuttall was an English botanist and zoologist who lived and worked in America from 1808 until 1841.
John Edward Gray was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of zoologist George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray (1766–1828). The standard author abbreviation J.E.Gray is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name. The same is used for a zoological name.
Asa Gray is considered the most important American botanist of the 19th century. His Darwiniana was considered an important explanation of how religion and science were not necessarily mutually exclusive. Gray was adamant that a genetic connection must exist between all members of a species. He was also strongly opposed to the ideas of hybridization within one generation and special creation in the sense of its not allowing for evolution. He was a strong supporter of Darwin, although Gray's theistic evolution was guided by a Creator.
Persicaria maculosa is an annual plant in the buckwheat family, Polygonaceae. Common names include lady's thumb, spotted lady's thumb, Jesusplant, and redshank. It is widespread across Eurasia from Iceland south to Portugal and east to Japan. It is also present as an introduced and invasive species in North America, where it was first noted in the Great Lakes region in 1843 and has now spread through most of the continent.
Manidae ("spirits") is the only extant family of pangolins from superfamily Manoidea. This family comprises three genera, as well as extinct Fayum pangolin.
The family Mormoopidae contains bats known generally as mustached bats, ghost-faced bats, and naked-backed bats. They are found in the Americas from the Southwestern United States to Southeastern Brazil.
The order Pilosa is a clade of xenarthran placental mammals, native to the Americas. It includes anteaters and sloths. The name comes from the Latin word for "hairy".
Samuel Frederick Gray was a British botanist, mycologist, and pharmacologist. He was the father of the zoologists John Edward Gray and George Robert Gray.
Fissurellidae, common name the keyhole limpets and slit limpets, is a taxonomic family of small to medium-sized limpet-like sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the clade Vetigastropoda.
Hylotelephium telephium, known as orpine, livelong, frog's-stomach, harping Johnny, life-everlasting, live-forever, midsummer-men, Orphan John and witch's moneybags, is a succulent perennial groundcover of the family Crassulaceae native to Eurasia. The flowers are held in dense heads and can be reddish or yellowish-white. A number of cultivars, often with purplish leaves, are grown in gardens as well as hybrids between this species and the related Hylotelephium spectabile (iceplant), especially the popular 'Herbstfreude'. Occasionally garden plants may escape and naturalise as has happened in parts of North America.
Lactarius subdulcis, commonly known as the mild milkcap or beech milk cap, is an edible mushroom in the genus Lactarius. It is brown in colour, with a large number of gills and a particularly thin layer of flesh in the cap. Mycorrhizal, the mushroom is found from late summer to late autumn at the base of beech trees in small groups or individually, where it is one of the two most common species of fungi. Alternatively, it can be found in large groups in fields, sometimes with more than a hundred individual mushrooms. It is found in Europe, and, despite previous research to the contrary, is absent in North America. Although considered edible, it is not particularly useful as food due to its ivy-like taste and the fact that more choice mushrooms will be easily found at the same time. L. subdulcis is known for its abundant, sweet-tasting milk that, unlike the latex of some of its relatives, does not stain fabric yellow.
The Steccherinaceae are a family of about 200 species of fungi in the order Polyporales. It includes crust-like, toothed, and poroid species that cause a white rot in dead wood.
Cortinarius violaceus, commonly known as the violet webcap or violet cort, is a fungus in the webcap genus Cortinarius native across the Northern Hemisphere. The fruit bodies are dark purple mushrooms with caps up to 15 cm (6 in) across, sporting gills underneath. The stalk measures 6 to 12 centimetres by 1 to 2 cm, sometimes with a thicker base. The dark flesh has a smell reminiscent of cedar wood. Forming symbiotic (ectomycorrhizal) relationships with the roots of various plant species, C. violaceus is found predominantly in conifer forests in North America and deciduous forests in Europe.
Mycena galericulata is a mushroom species commonly known as the common bonnet, the toque mycena, the common mycena or the rosy-gill fairy helmet. The type species of the genus Mycena was first described scientifically in 1772, but was not considered a Mycena until 1821. It is quite variable in color, size, and shape, which makes it somewhat difficult to reliably identify in the field. The mushrooms have caps with distinct radial grooves, particularly at the margin. The cap's color varies from grayish brown to dark brown and the shape ranges from bell-like to bluntly conical to flattened with an umbo. The stem is hollow, white, tough and thin, without a ring and often roots deeply into the wood on which it grows. The gills are white to grayish or even pinkish when mature and are connected by distinct cross-veins. The caps can reach 4 cm (1.6 in) in diameter, and have a mealy odor and taste. The spore print is white and the gills are pink at maturity, which can lead to possible confusion with species of the genus Pluteus. M. galericulata mushrooms grow mostly in clusters on the well-decayed stumps of deciduous and coniferous trees from spring to autumn. The species can generally be considered inedible. It is common and widespread in the entire temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere, but it has also been reported from Africa.
Mycena polygramma, commonly known as the grooved bonnet, is a species of mushroom in the family Mycenaceae. The inedible fruit bodies are small, pale gray-brown mushrooms with broadly conical caps, pinkish gills. They are found in small troops on stumps and branches of deciduous and occasionally coniferous trees. The mushroom is found in Asia, Europe, and North America, where it is typically found on twigs or buried wood, carrying out its role in the forest ecosystem by decomposing organic matter, recycling nutrients, and forming humus in the soil. M. polygramma contains two uncommon hydroxy fatty acids and is also a bioluminescent fungus whose intensity of light emission follows a diurnal pattern.
Steccherinum is a widely distributed genus of toothed crust fungi in the family Steccherinaceae.
Clavaria fragilis, commonly known as fairy fingers, white worm coral, or white spindles, is a species of fungus in the family Clavariaceae. It is synonymous with Clavaria vermicularis. The fungus is the type species of the genus Clavaria and is a typical member of the clavarioid or club fungi. It produces tubular, unbranched, white basidiocarps that typically grow in clusters. The fruit bodies can reach dimensions of 15 cm (5.9 in) tall by 0.5 cm (0.2 in) thick. Clavaria fragilis is a saprobic species, growing in woodland litter or in old, unimproved grassland. It is widespread throughout temperate regions in the Northern Hemisphere, but has also been reported from Australia and South Africa. The fungus is edible, but insubstantial and flavorless. There are several other small white coral-like fungi with which C. fragilis may be confused.
The Amaryllidaceae are a family of herbaceous, mainly perennial and bulbous flowering plants in the monocot order Asparagales. The family takes its name from the genus Amaryllis and is commonly known as the amaryllis family. The leaves are usually linear, and the flowers are usually bisexual and symmetrical, arranged in umbels on the stem. The petals and sepals are undifferentiated as tepals, which may be fused at the base into a floral tube. Some also display a corona. Allyl sulfide compounds produce the characteristic odour of the onion subfamily (Allioideae).
Thelephora palmata commonly known as the fetid false coral or stinking earthfan, is a species of clavarioid fungus in the family Thelephoraceae. The fruit bodies are leathery and coral-like, with branches that are narrow at the base before widening out like a fan and splitting into numerous flattened prongs. The wedge-like tips are whitish when young, but darken as the fungus matures. The common names of the fungus refers to its pungent odor, likened to fetid garlic. A widely distributed but uncommon species, it is found in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America, where it fruits on the ground in both coniferous and mixed forest.
Kenneth A. Harrison was a Canadian mycologist. He was for many years a plant pathologist at what is now the Atlantic Food and Horticulture Research Centre in Nova Scotia. After retirement, he contributed to the taxonomy of the Agaricomycotina, particularly the tooth fungi of the families Hydnaceae and Bankeraceae, in which he described several new species.
