Rolf Singer was a leading figure in mycology. He was a prolific writer and held important academic and research positions in Europe, North America and South America. He was a Research Associate in the Department of Botany, The Field Museum, from 1968-1994. Singer developed the nearly universally used classification for the Agaricales (mushrooms and related fungi) and named 86 genera, over 2460 species and infraspecies of fungi distributed in 222 genera. His 440 papers written in 9 languages, covered topics ranging from fungal systematics, nomenclature, ecology, ethnomycology, and mushroom cultivation.
Mueller and Wu (1997) published a book summarizing many of Singer's contributions to the study of fungi. Click on the Related Info menu below to get information on ordering the book. The major part of the book consists of an index to all of the genera, species, and infraspecific taxa described by Singer, including information on the type specimen, place of deposition, and a literature citation for the type description. Now the index and a bibliography of Singer's 440 publications are presented as a searchable database. Currently we are confirming the existence of the type specimens in the herbaria as indicated in Singer's publications. If you have comments or corrections, please contact Gregory M. Mueller at gmueller@chicagobotanic.org.
