ELLIOT C. HOWE 



1 828- 1 899 



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 Hy poxy- 

 Ion 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 



187 



