William Ashbrook Kellerman

William Ashbrook Kellerman

William Ashbrook Kellerman (May 1, 1850 Ashville, Ohio – March 8, 1908) was an American botanist, mycologist and photographer.

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. During this time, in 1876, he married Stella Victoria Dennis.

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. He also became state botanist and wrote a pamphlet on the flora of Kansas. 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. With Benjamin Matlack Everhart and Job Bicknell Ellis, 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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