Cecil Terence Ingold

Cecil Terence Ingold (5 July 1905 – 31 May 2010) was "one of the most influential mycologists of the twentieth century".^[1] He was president of the British Mycological Society where he organized the first international congress of mycologists. An entire class of aquatic fungi within the Pleosporales, the Ingoldian fungi,^[2] were named after him,^[3] although recent DNA studies are changing the scientific names.

Ingold attended Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where, in 1926, he received his bachelor's degree in botany, with emphasis on mycology. After a year at Imperial College, London, he returned to Queen's University for his doctorate in botany which he was awarded in 1930. His dissertation was on systems in plant sap that buffer against changes in pH. Ingold received a faculty appointment to the Department of Botany, at the University of Reading, where he taught botany. From 1944 he held a chair at Birkbeck College, University of London.^[1]

In 1932, at the urging of Walter Buddin, Ingold joined the British Mycological Society.^[3] In 1938 Ingold began his study of freshwater fungi and in 1942 he published his seminal work: "Aquatic hyphomycetes of decaying alder leaves".^[4]

Ingold continued to work on fungi for thirty years after his retirement.^[1]

His daughter is Patsy Healey^[5] and son is the noted anthropologist Tim Ingold^[6]

Major works

• 1939. Spore discharge in land plants. Oxford University Press.
• 1971. Fungal spores: their liberation and dispersal. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198541158

Eponymous taxa

• Ingoldia
• Ingoldiella
• Ingoldiomyces
• Acaromyces ingoldii
• Bensingtonia ingoldii
• Lindgomyces ingoldianus
• Lophiostoma ingoldianum
• Massarina ingoldiana
• Pseudocercophora ingoldii

Notes