ELLIOT C. HOWE 



1828-1899 

 Stropharia Howeana PECK 



Some of our medical botanists have left only 

 mycological remembrances suggestive of brief 

 life and constant renewal. Standing out in strong 

 contrast to the grand, enduring Pinus Engel- 

 manni or the Abies Douglassi rocking storm- 

 defying and rising some hundred feet in the air 

 are two fungi, Stropharia Howeana and Hypoxy- 

 lon Howeanum, which recall the work of Elliot 

 C. Howe, the mycologist, who was born on Feb- 

 ruary 14, 1828, in Jamaica, Vermont, was edu- 

 cated at Lansingburg Academy, and was de- 

 voted, even as a schoolboy, to fossils, animals, 

 plants, music and chemistry. Biographers often 

 label these young inclinings as " a love of geology, 

 etc.," but most boys begin some natural history 

 collection, and " a taste for chemistry " often 

 means a six-months craze for inflicting obnox- 

 ious smells and more enduring stains on the 

 furniture and carpets of a long-suffering family. 

 However, young Howe's early tendencies became 

 confirmed tastes. He also studied physiology 

 and medicine in New York City, eking out his 



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