William Ashbrook Kellerman (May 1, 1850
Ashville, Ohio – March 8, 1908) was an American botanist, mycologist and photographer.[1][2][3][4]
Biography
Kellerman was born in May 1850 in Ohio, the son of Daniel Kemberling Kellerman and Iva/Ivy Ashbrook Kellerman. His father a merchant and Farmer originally from Pennsylvania did well for himself and put his son in fine schools. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from
Cornell University in 1874. After graduation, Kellerman was hired as Professor of Natural Sciences at the Wisconsin State Normal School, a position he held for five years.[1] During this time, in 1876, he married
Stella Victoria Dennis, also a botanist.[5]
In 1879, the Kellermans moved to Germany, where he attended the Universities of
Göttingen and
Zurich, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1881. They returned to the U.S., and he was appointed Professor of Botany and Zoology at the
State College (now University) of Kentucky in
Lexington. In 1883, he joined the Department of Botany and Zoology at the Kansas State College of Agriculture (now
Kansas State University) in
Manhattan.[1] He also became state botanist and wrote a pamphlet on the flora of Kansas.[6] In 1891 he became a professor of botany at
Ohio State University.
He studied the
smuts (fungal diseases) of
wheat and
oats, and demonstrated that hot water is an effective
fungicide. With
Benjamin Matlack Everhart and
Job Bicknell Ellis,[7] in 1885 he founded the Journal of Mycology, now Mycologia.[1] In 1904 he began making annual botanical expeditions to
Guatemala.[8] It was there in 1908 that he contracted a fever (generally believed to be malaria), died, and was buried in the "cactus fenced cemetery at Zacapa."[8]
He edited three
exsiccata works.[9] The one with the title Ohio fungi is found in major
herbaria.[10]