George Francis Atkinson

George Francis Atkinson (1854–1918) was an American botanist and mycologist, professor of botany at Cornell University from 1896 until his death. Born in Michigan and educated at Cornell, he taught at the universities of North Carolina and South Carolina and at Alabama Polytechnic before returning to Ithaca, where he built one of the leading botanical departments in the country and trained many of the next generation of American mycologists. Studies of American Fungi: Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. (1900) was the first American mushroom book to rely on photographs. He also wrote textbooks of botany and studies of the development of fungi.