Rumph to Donk: Pre‐Indonesian Mycology and Biography

Marinus Anton Donk, born in pre‐Indonesia and resident during the last years of Dutch Colonial rule, fell heir to a history of mycological studies traceable to the 1600s. Rumphius, Juhnhuhn, Zollinger, von H??hnel, van Overeem, and Boedijn were some of his predecessors. He survived cruel treatment while under Japanese incarceration during World War II, to become Head of the Herbarium in Bogor (formerly Buitenzorg), Java. Indonesia. In middle age, he moved to the Rijksherbarium in the Netherlands and further established his reputation in the taxonomy and nomenclature of the Hymenomycetes, a large group of basidiomycetous fungi. He was lauded and feared by numerous mycologists before he died prematurely in 1972. Occasional contemporary (chiefly mycological) personalities are included here as well as personal Donk communications to others.