Albert Francis Blakeslee

Albert Francis Blakeslee (1874 - 1954)

Image of Zygomycetes from Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck & A. C. F. Henry (1837) Das System der Pilze: part one

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Biography
Sources
Selected publications
Genera

Biography

1874 November 16, born in Geneseo, New York

1896 graduates from Wesleyan, teaches school

1900 enters graduate school at Harvard

1904 receives PhD in botany

various post-doctoral studies and short appointments

1915 appointed resident investigator at the Carnegie Institution's Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he starts doing research on jimson weed (Datura stramonium) and other Datura species.

1919 marries Margaret Bridges

1941 retires as Director of Cold Spring, becomes Research Professor at Smith College, where he raises funds for and creates the Smith College Genetics Experiment Station

1954 November 16, dies in Northampton, Massachusetts

Image of Zygomycetes from Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck & A. C. F. Henry (1837) Das System der Pilze: part one

As you can see, Blakeslee made a promising beginning, doing research on fungi, but unfortunately strayed into the world of plants. Species of Mucorineae produce huge, warty spores called zygospores, which is why that phylum of the fungi is called Zygomycetes. Blakeslee showed that his different cultures of Mucorineae could be separated into two groups, which he called + and -, as there was no visible difference between them. Any member of the + group would form zygospores with any member of the - group, but not with any other member of the + group; and likewise any member of the - group would form zygospores with any member of the + group, but not with any other member of the - group. This demonstrated the existence of "sexes" in the Mucors (although we now call them mating types) and established once and for all that sex does occur in the fungi.

If you'll look below, you'll see that Thaxter named a genus after him only ten years after that dissertation.

His achievements outside of fungi are diverse: he bred one of the first hybrid pines during his short appointment at Connecticut Agricultural College; he showed that the ability to perceive certain tastes and smells is inherited; he found mutants of Datura that had unusual numbers of chromosomes, and found a way to induce this condition in part of the Datura embryo, producing an adult plant with partially strange chromosome numbers, enabling him to track which parts of the mature plant came from which part of the embryo. Once he discovered all the fun that was to be had with Datura, he did little further work on fungi.

He seems to have been a convivial individual and for instance formed a social club for the older, retired faculty and staff while at Smith College, which he called the OBND (Out But Not Down) club.
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Sources

Harry Baker Humphrey (1961) Makers of North American Botany

Roland Thaxter (1914) "New or Peculiar Zygomycetes: III. Blakeslea, Dissophora and Haplosporangium, Nova Genera" in Botanical Gazette

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Selected Publications

Albert Francis Blakeslee (1904) "Sexual Reproduction in the Mucorineae" in Proceedings of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, USA 40 pp. 205 - 319

This is the work that established for once and for all that sex occurs in the fungi, and established the existence of mating types in fungi.

Genera

Thamnocephalis Blakeslee

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