William Ashbrook Kellerman

William Ashbrook Kellerman (May 1 1850–1908) was an American botanist, mycologist and photographer. [cite journal | author = R. F. Griggs, F. L. Landacre and J.C. Hambleton | year = 1908 | title = On the Death of William Ashbrook Kellerman | journal = The Ohio Naturalist | volume = 8 | issue = 7 | pages = 361–362] [cite web | url = http://www.ilmyco.gen.chicago.il.us/Authors/WAKellerma969.html | title = William Ashbrook Kellerman (1850–1908) | publisher = Illinois Mycological Association]

He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell University in 1874. In 1876 he married Stella Victoria Dennis. In 1879 they 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. Later he joined the Department of Botany and Zoology at the State College of Agriculture (now Kansas State University) in Manhattan, and in 1891 he became 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.

In 1885 he founded the "Journal of Mycology", now "Mycologia".

In 1904 he began making annual botanical expeditions to Guatemala. It was there in 1907 that he contracted a fever, and he died after returning to the U.S.

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