Gastón Guzmán

Dr. Gastón Guzmán

Gastón Guzmán (August 26, 1932 – January 12, 2016), a Mexican mycologist and anthropologist, was an authority on the genus Psilocybe.

Career

He was born in Xalapa, Veracruz, in 1932. His interest in mycology began in 1955 when as a graduate student he decided to update his school's (National Polytechnic Institute) poorly kept collection of fungi. During his early field work he found a large assortment of species about which little was known at the time. This inspired him to choose fungi as the topic of his professional thesis.

In 1957 Guzmán was invited by the University of Mexico to assist Rolf Singer, who would arrive to Mexico the following year to study the hallucinogenic mushroom genus Psilocybe. Guzmán accepted and assisted Singer through his explorations in Mexico. While they were in the Huautla de Jiménez region, in their last day of the expeditions, they met R. Gordon Wasson. For Guzmán it was a "fructiferous meeting."[1]

In 1958, he published his first paper on a blue-staining Psilocybe species and the first paper on the ecology of neurotropic fungi. In 1971, he received a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation of New York, on the recommendation of Richard Evans Schultes to study the genus Psilocybe, which resulted in a comprehensive monograph on the subject in 1983, titled The Genus Psilocybe: A Systematic Revision of the Known Species Including the History, Distribution and Chemistry of the Hallucinogenic Species.[2] He also authored eight other books and over 350 papers on Mexican mushrooms and has described more than 200 new taxa of fungi worldwide. More than half of the known psilocybin mushroom species were first described by Guzmán and his collaborators.

A co-founder and former president of the Mexican Mycological Society (1965), he was also president of the Latin American Mycological Association (2000–2002), founded by him in La Habana, Cuba, in 1990. Guzmán held an emeritus research chair at the Ecological Institute of Xalapa where he founded the Department and Herbarium of Fungi which now has more than 50,000 specimens. In 1955 he founded the Mycological Herbarium at the National School of Biological Sciences (ENCB) in Mexico City. ENCB now has more than 100,000 specimens, the most sizable collection in Mexico.

Personal life

Guzmán's daughter, Laura Guzmán Dávalos, is also a prominent mycologist. She founded the Mycology Department at the University of Guadalajara.

Guzmán died of a heart attack in Guadalajara, Mexico on January 12, 2016 at the age of 83.[3]

Eponymy

Several fungus species have been named in Guzmán's honor:

Selected publications

References

  1. ↑ Guzmán-Dávalos L. (2005). "Dr. Gastón Guzmán, 50 años como micólogo desde la perspectiva de una hija, alumna y colega" (PDF). Revista Mexicana de Micología (in Spanish) 21: 1–4.
  2. ↑ The Genus Psilocybe: A Systematic Revision of the Known Species Including the History, Distribution and Chemistry of the Hallucinogenic Species
  3. ↑ "El Conacyt lamenta el sensible fallecimiento del Dr. Gastón Guzmán". Conacyt.com. Retrieved January 16, 2016. (Spanish)
  4. ↑ "Author Query for 'Guzmán'". International Plant Names Index.
  5. 1 2 Singer R. (1973). The genera Marasmiellus, Crepidotus, and Simocybe in the Neotropics. Beihefte zur Nova Hedwigia 44. p. 479.
  6. ↑ Brusis OA. (1972). "A new species of Fistulina from Mexico". Mycologia 64 (6): 1248–1252. doi:10.2307/3757961.
  7. ↑ Singer R. (1973). "Diagnoses fungorum novorum Agaricalium III". Beihefte zur Sydowia 7: 33.
  8. ↑ Singer R. (1976). Marasmiceae (Basidiomycetes – Tricholomataceae). Flora Neotropica 17. p. 218.
  9. ↑ Lowy B. (1979). "A new genus and species of Tremellaceae from Mexico". Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Micología 13: 223–227.
  10. ↑ Natarajan K, Raman N. (1983). South Indian Agaricales. Bibliotheca Mycologica 89. p. 102.
  11. ↑ Santiago G, Cifuentes J, Villegas M. (1984). "Contribución al conocimiento del género Amanita subgénero Amanita en Mexico". Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Micología (in Spanish) 19: 93–105.
  12. ↑ Courtecuisse R. (1986). "Notes de nomenclature concernant les hyménomycètes. IV. Sur quelques épithètes spécifiques préoccupés. 3". Mycotaxon (in French) 27: 127–145.
  13. ↑ Stalpers JA, Seifert KA, Samson RA. (1991). "A revision of the genera Antromycopsis, Sclerostilbum and Tilachlidiopsis (Hyphomycetes)" (PDF). Canadian Journal of Botany 69 (1): 6–15. doi:10.1139/b91-002.
  14. ↑ Montoya L, Bandala-Muñoz VM. (1991). "Studies on the genus Phylloporus in Mexico. I : Discussion of the known species and description of a new species and an new record". Mycotaxon 41 (2): 471–482.
  15. ↑ Galloway DJ. (1992). Studies in Pseudocyphellaria (lichens) III. The South American species. Bibliotheca Lichenologica 46. p. 145.
  16. ↑ Cazares E, Garcia J, Castillo J, Trappe JM. (1992). "Hypogeous fungi from northern Mexico". Mycologia 84 (3): 341–359.
  17. ↑ San Martín González F, Rogers JD. (1993). "Biscogniauxia and Camillea in Mexico". Mycotaxon 47: 229–258.
  18. ↑ Welden AL. (1993). "Notes on tropical and warm temperate basidiomycetes. II". Mycotaxon 48: 69–84.
  19. ↑ Bandala-Muñoz VM, Montoya L. (1994). "Further investigations on Phaeocollybia with notes on infrageneric classification". Mycotaxon 52 (2): 397–422.
  20. ↑ Moreno G, Bandala VM, Montoya L. (1996). "Una nuova specie di Suillus cerulescente dal Messico". Rivista di Micologia (in Spanish) 39 (3): 259–268.
  21. ↑ Alves CR, Cortez VG. (2013). "Calvatia guzmanii sp. nov. (Agaricaceae, Basidiomycota) from Paraná State, Brazil". Phytotaxa 85 (2): 35–40. doi:10.11646/phytotaxa.85.2.1.

Cited texts

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