Dr. A.F.M. Reijnders, centenarian

A few weeks ago a reprint was distributed of an interesting paper on the formation of spores by metamorphosis of basidia in fruiting bodies of Mycocalia and Scleroderma. That in itself was not so remarkable. But it is really a small miracle that this paper was written by Dr. A.F.M. Reijnders at the age of 99 and that it appeared in the outstanding international mycological journal ‘Mycological Research’ (1999). It may take another 100 years before a mycologist will equal this impressive performance. Mycology has much to thank Dr. Reijnders for. Soon after he started to publish mycological papers in 1930, his first work on the development of the fruiting body in Agaricales appeared (1933). This publication, in the Dutch language, is to be seen as an introduction to the field of the ontogeny of basidiocarps and presents a survey of the work done by others up to that time. Meticulous case studies followed in his major publications in 1948 and 1952 written in French. A real milestone, however, was the book published in 1963, that covered the whole field of fruit-body ontogeny and its implications for taxonomy and phylogeny of the Agaricales s.l. This book, again in French, with an introduction by Prof. Dr. R. Heim, became the touchstone for all later work in this field of science.