Page "Beatrix Potter" Paragraph 13

Rebuffed by William Thiselton-Dyer, the Director at Kew, because of her gender and her amateur status, Beatrix wrote up her conclusions and submitted a paper On the Germination of the Spores of the Agaricineae to the Linnean Society in 1897.

It was introduced by Massee because, as a female, Potter could not attend proceedings or read her paper.

She subsequently withdrew it realising that some of her samples were contaminated, but continued her microscopic studies for several more years.

Her paper has only recently been rediscovered, along with the rich, artistic illustrations and drawings that accompanied it.

Her work is only now being properly evaluated.

Potter later gave her other mycological drawings and scientific drawings to the Armitt Museum and Library in Ambleside where mycologists still refer to them to identify fungi.

There is also a collection of her fungi paintings at the Perth Museum and Art Gallery in Perth, Scotland donated by Charles McIntosh.

In 1967 the mycologist W. P. K.

Findlay included many of Potter ’ s beautifully accurate fungi drawings in his Wayside & Woodland Fungi, thereby fulfilling her desire to one day have her fungi drawings published in a book.

In 1997 the Linnean Society issued a posthumous apology to Potter for the sexism displayed in its handling of her research.