Gertrude Simmons Burlingham

Gertrude Simmons Burlingham (April 21, 1872 – January 11, 1952) was an early 20th-century mycologist best known for her work on American Russula and Lactarius and pioneering the use of microscopic spore features and iodine staining for species identification. Her life outside scientific research has been little documented with the exception of the most basic biographical information.

Gertrude S. Burlingham was born in Mexico, New York on April 21, 1872. Her life prior to obtaining a Master of Science degree from Syracuse University in 1898 she was a teacher of biology and grade adviser at Eastern High School, Brooklyn. While a student at Syracuse, she became a member of Kappa Alpha Theta. From 1898 to her retirement in 1934, she taught high-school biology in Binghamton and Brooklyn, but despite earning a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1908, never taught at college level. She was never married.

As a postgraduate, she worked primarily at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) under an agreement between that institution and Columbia University for doctoral studies, the first woman to gain a Ph.D. from the program. At the garden, she collaborated with William A. Murrill (she would eventually name Russula murrillii after him). Soon after starting her scientific career, she began spending a lot of time in Vermont, where she owned a secondary home in Newfane, Windham County, an area that was the topic of her very first scientific publication.

Tribe Lactarieae, formed of the genera Lactarius (which she called Lactaria) and Russula, was her specialty and the topic of both her doctoral thesis (published in the Memoirs of the Torrey Botanical Club) as well as the majority of her publications, such as the 1910 treatment of the tribe for the North American Flora. Russula specialist Ray Fatto credited Burlingham with noting the importance of spore ornamentation in separating the species of this notoriously troublesome genus. Although some authors, like Michael Kuo, have disputed the usefulness of that criterion, it has remained of great importance in the absence of genetic research to clarify the status of many species. In his obituary, Fred J. Seaver says that "[s]he had a wide knowledge of the fungi in general and having grown up on a farm she was an all-round naturalist."

After she retired from teaching in 1934, she moved to Florida, joining there several other retired mycologists, and collaborated primarily with Henry Curtis Beardslee (she would also name a Russula after him, and write his obituary). She collected primarily in the Northeast and Florida, but also the Pacific Northwest and on one occasion, traveled to Scandinavia where she worked with Lars Romell, Seth Lundell and Jakob Lange. She died in her Winter Park, Florida home on January 11, 1952 from an unspecified illness and was buried on Newfane Hill at her own request.

Her papers, personal library (including some rare early works) and 10,000 specimens herbarium were bequeathed to the NYBG, where she funded a fellowship to allow for students of mycology to use the garden's facilities. This fellowship was granted to 27 students between 1956 and 1994. Her papers at the library include a large correspondence covering 40 years, research papers and manuscripts, field notes, several hundred pictures and glass negatives (mostly of specimens), as well as some 60 watercolor illustrations by fellow mycologist Ann Hibbard.

For a more complete list, see Seaver's obituary.

• Burlingham, G. S. (1910). "Agaricaceae – Lactaria". North American Flora 9 (3): 172–200.
• _______________ (1915). "Agaricaceae – Lactarieae". North American Flora 9 (4): 201–236.
• _______________ (1944). "Studies in North American russulae". Mycologia 36: 104–120. JSTOR 3754882
• _______________ (1945). "Noteworthy species of Lepiota and Lactaria". Mycologia 37: 53–64. JSTOR 3754850
• _______________ (1948). "Henry Curtis Beardslee". Mycologia 40: 505-506. JSTOR 3755255

Three species of fungi have been named in honor of Gertrude Burlingham:

• Entoloma burlinghamiae Murrill 1917
• Russula burlinghamiae Singer 1938
• Rhizopogon burlinghamii A.H.Sm. 1966