The NEMF 2001 Logo

You may want to know a few things about it.

The mushroom image was extracted from Plate 20 of The Icones Farlowanae, published 1929, by The Farlow Library and Herbarium of Harvard University.This plate, the work of the artist Joseph Bridghman, is captioned and described as Clitocybe illudens Schweinitz, Syn. Car. 81. 1822. (see "The Creation of Icones Farlowianae")

I have been given permission from the Farlow Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany, to reproduce and publish color photoprints of this material. The credit line reads: "Farlow Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA". The chair of the NEMF 2001 planning committee has been designated as publisher for the Boston Mycological Club. In consideration of this permission, I have copywritten the entire logo design. I can see no objection to the excellent ideas of extending the use to include programs, posters, banners, award certificates, citations etc., that relate to NEMF2001. Other contemplated uses should acknowledge the source(s) and request permission.

The ideas I tried to incorporate into the logo included a sense of homage to the Bigelows who taught and worked at U. Mass in Amherst. Dr. Howard E. Bigelow's major work was on Clitocybe, so I looked for a striking illustration of a Clitocybe that was named for him, or that he had worked on. My eye and spirit were taken by the wonderful plate in the Icones; but this has since undergone a name change to Omphalotus olearius (D.C. ex Fr.) Singer. I have not yethad an opportunity to consult his two volume opus on Clitocybe or to find out whether Bigelow worked on this mushroom. In his Mushroom Pocket Field Guide, Macmillan, 1974, p. 26, he uses the names Omphalotus illudens and Clitocybe illudens. If anyone can supplement my meager information, I’d be obliged.

As a bit of whimsy directed to those eristical lumpers, splitters, and common-namers, I used three names in the design.



Milton Landowne, May 27, 2001