Leland Shanor was an American mycologist and botanist. He married mycologist Mary Williams Ward Shanor on June 20, 1940 in Burgaw, North Carolina. They had two sons. Charles was born in 1946 and Paul in 1949. Outside of their studies in Mycology, Leland and Mary Shanor were both heavily involved in real estate. They are both buried in Rockfish Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Wallace, Duplin County, North Carolina.
After graduation, Shanor left the University of North Carolina to become instructor of Botany at Clemson College in South Carolina for a one-year period and then later at the University of Illinois. Prior to World War II he worked on diverse groups, from chytrids to the early-diverging group Rozella. He described new species such as Nowakoskiella hemisphaerospora and the water mold Protoachlya hypogyna. During World War II Leland Shanor served as Plant Pathologist and led studies on fungi associated with tropical deterioration of textiles and cordage. After World War II, he went back to the University of Illinois in 1946 as an Assistant Professor. In 1951 he became Professor and Curator of the Mycological collections. His work focused on various groups of Fungi, such as Laboulbeniales, a group of parasites attached to the exoskeletons of insects. Shanor's fungal herbarium specimens are mainly held at the University of North Carolina, the University of Illinois and in the United States National Fungus Collection. Other specimens can also be found at Harvard University's Farlow Herbarium, Iowa State University's Ada Hayden Herbarium, the New York Botanical Garden, the Oregon State University Herbarium, the herbarium at the University of California Berkeley, the University of Florida Herbarium, and the University of Michigan Herbarium. Leland Shanor was appreciated as a professor and supervised several graduate students while at the University of Illinois. Many of his students became world authorities on the taxonomic groups that they studied. A few examples are Richard K. Benjamin who worked on Laboulbeniales, Everett Smith Beneke who studied human mycosis and Robert W. Lichtwardt who is a world authority on Trichomycetes. In 1956, Shanor left the University of Illinois to join Florida State University in Tallahassee as Professor of Botany and Chairman of Biological Sciences. This departure marks a change in Leland Sharon's career towards more administrative responsibilities. He became Dean of the Division of Advanced Studies in the Florida Institute of Continuing Studies and Division Director of NSF's Division of Undergraduate Studies. Leland Shanor's last job was at the University of Florida. In 1965 he became a Professor of Botany and was the Chairman of the Botany Department. He occupied diverse administrative positions but was still supervising graduate students. He served also in numerous University committees.
Formal positions
1950–1953: Editor of the Mycological Society Newsletter
1964: Citation of merit from Highlands Biological Station
Two species and a genus of fungi belonging to the Pezizomycotina subdivision were named after Leland Shanor: Densocarpa shanorii, Laboulbenia shanorii and the genus Shanorella.
