Pier Andrea Saccardo

Pier Andrea Saccardo

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. He was an Assistant to Roberto de Visiani (1800-1878) an Italian botanist, naturalist and scholar.[1] Then in 1869, he became a professor of Natural History in Padua. In 1876 he established the mycological 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 until 1915. He accumulated around 70,000 fungal specimens encompassing over 18,500 different species for his herbarium. Which is still stored at the university.[2]

Saccardo's scientific activity focused almost entirely on mycology. He wrote his first book in 1864 (when he was 19 years old), Flora Montellica: an introduction to the flora Trevigiana. In 1872, he published Mycologiae Venetae Specimen, in which he described some 1200 fungi species.[3] He published over 140 papers on the Deuteromycota (imperfect mushrooms) 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 before classification by DNA analysis.

Saccardo's 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 (Padua 1882–90, in nine volumes) followed by the 1931 edition in 25 volumes.

He had a son, Domenico Saccardo (1872 - 1952) and daughter, Neffe Francesco Saccardo (1869 - 1896).[1]

Saccardo was one of the most prolific taxonomists in the history of Fungi. He has described some 1200 fungi species, including 52 that were new to science for one book.[3]

He has also described 3 species of plants;[4]

• Antennaria rectangularis Sacc., Harriman Alaska Exped 5: 34, pl. 3 (1904)[5]
• Hibiscus pentacarpos var. albiflorus Sacc. ex Fiori, Nuov. Fl. Italia 2: 165 (1926) now a synonym of Kosteletzkya pentacarpos
• Ophrys integra Sacc., in Nuov. Giorn. Bot. iii. (1871) 165. now a synonym of Ophrys apifera

He was honoured in the naming of various genera and species;

• Saccardoa Trevis. 1869, (Lichenes), synonym of Pseudocyphellaria Vain., 1890
• Saccardia Cooke 1878 (Saccardiaceae family) in Grevillea 7: 49 in 1878.[6]
• Saccardoella {{Au|Speg. 1879, (Sordariomycetes class)]] in Michelia 1(5): 461 in 1879.[7]
• Saccardinula Speg. 1885 (Elsinoaceae family) in Anales Soc. Sci. Argent. 19: 257 in 1885.[8]
• Pasaccardoa Kuntze 1891, (in the Asteraceae family.[9]
• Saccardaea Cavara 1894 now a synonym of Venustosynnema ciliatum.[10]
• Saccardophytum Speg., first published in Anales Soc. Ci. Argent. 53: 181 in 1902, now a synonym of Benthamiella.[11]
• Saccardomyces Henn. 1904 (Trichosphaeriaceae family) in Hedwigia 43: 353 in 1904.[12]
• Phaeosaccardinula Henn. 1905 (Chaetothyriaceae family) in Hedwigia 44: XIV, 67 in 1905.[13]
• Neosaccardia Mattir. 1921 (fungi), synonym of Scleroderma Pers., 1801[14]

• Meyers Konversations-Lexikon of 1890
• Davis, J. J. (August 1920) "Pier Andrea Saccardo" Botanical Gazette 70(2): pp. 156–157
• Dörfelt, Heinrich and Heklau, Heike (1998) Die Geschichte der Mykologie (The History of Mycology) Einhorn-Verlag E. Dietenberger, Schwäbisch Gmünd, ISBN 3-927654-44-2

• "Pier Andrea Saccardo (1845–1921)" Illinois Mycological Association
• Wubah, Daniel A. (1999) "History of Mycology" Towson University, MD
• Saccardo's (1894) Chromotaxia, seu nomenclator colorum... ad usum botanicorum et zoologorum (in English, French, German, Italian, and Latin) – digital facsimile from the Linda Hall Library