Christian Hendrik Persoon

Christian Hendrik Persoon (February 1, 1761 - November 16, 1836) was a mycologist who made additions to Linnaeus' mushroom taxonomy.

Persoon was born in South Africa, of Dutch and German descent. His mother died soon after he was born; at the age of thirteen his father (who died a year later) sent him to Europe for his education. Initially studying theology, Persoon switched to medicine, and somehow received an honorary PhD in 1799. He moved to Paris in 1802, where he spent the rest of his life, renting an upper floor of a house in a poor part of town. He was apparently unemployed, unmarried, poverty-stricken and a recluse, although he corresponded with botanists throughout Europe.

The origin of Persoon's botanical interest is unknown. Between 1805 and 1807, he published two volumes of his Synopsis plantarum, a popular work describing 20,000 species of all types of plants. But his pioneering work was in the fungi, for which he published several works, beginning with the Synopsis methodica fungorum (1801); it is the starting point for nomenclature of the Uredinales, Ustilaginales, and the Gasteromycetes.

The genus Persoonia, a variety of small Australian trees and shrubs, was named after him.