Pier Andrea Saccardo
Pier Andrea Saccardo was an Italian botanist and mycologist.Life
Saccardo studied at the Lyceum in Venice, and then at the Technical Institute of the University of Padua where, in 1867 he received his doctorate and in 1869 became a professor of Natural History. In 1876 he established the journal Michelia which published many of his early mycological papers. In 1879 he became a professor of Botany and director of the botanical gardens of the university.
Saccardo's scientific activity focused almost entirely on mycology. He published over 140 papers on the Deuteromycota and the Pyrenomycetes. He was most famous for his Sylloge, which was a comprehensive list of all of the names that had been used for mushrooms. Sylloge is still the only work of this kind that was both comprehensive for the botanical kingdom Fungi and reasonably modern. Saccardo also developed a system for classifying the imperfect fungi by spore color and form, which became the primary system used prior to classification by DNA analysis.
Chromotaxy scale
Saccardo proposed this
color scale in
1894, for standardizing
color naming of plant specimens.
Indispensable in the
history of mycology is his master work
Sylloge fungorum omnium hucusque cognitorum followed by the
1931 edition in 25 volumes.
Books
- Prospetto della Flora Trivigiana
- Bryotheca Tarvisina
- Della storia e letteratura della Flora Veneta
- Sommario d'un corso di botanica
- Musci Tarvisini
- Mycologiae Venetae specimen
- Mycotheca Veneta
- Michelis, commentarium mycologicum
- Fungi italici autographie delineati et colorati
