Friesia X, 4-5

- 328 -
From 1947 til 1955 he was Head of the Herbarium Bogoriense and be ­
cam e a deputy professor at the University of Indonesia in 1952 .
On hi s return to the Netherlands in 1956 DONK became H ead of the
Myc ological Department of the Rijksherbarium at Le iden. H e gave leetures
to graduat e students of mycology. He refused to accept more than one
professorship in order to devote all his time to mycology. He was a Member
of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences and Secretary of the Biological
Section of the Soci ety from 1964 til 1969 .
On inv itat ion DONK sp ent a year , 1969-1970 , in t he U. S. A. as a
National Science Foundation Visiting P rofesso r .
Dr . DONK published more than 100 myco logi cal papers a mounti ng to
more than 2300 pages. He left his personal myc olog ical herbarium a nd
his extr emely valuable card-index to the Rijk sherbar ium a nd a lso a part
of his library.
DONK had an excellent knowledge of many gr oups of fungi. Gr adually,
however, he became more and more interested in generic classification,
r elati onship, and nomenclature. He seerned to have a natural leaning to ­
war ds juridi cal matters. This together with his large library, ex traor dinary
memory, and very orderly mind probably made him seek nomenclatural
problems and taxonomic studies as his main line of research for many
years. His papers on nomenelature were logical (but also often witty!) and
they were based on a thorough understanding of what was Ol' should have
been t he underlying principles of the Rules. He did much to clarify and
straight en up the Rules of Nomenclature, especiaIly those parts that concerned
fungi. His interpretations of the Code were not always accepted
unanimously but most mycologists now accept and practice most of his
r ecom mendati ons.
His series of papers "The generic names proposed for Hymenomycet es"
is extremely valuable. We are all greatly indebted to him for the enormous
lot of painstanking detailed work done to clean up what seerned to be a
hopeless Augean-stable of names. No one was better suited to that work
than DONK.
In hi s later years he returned to the fungi of his youth, the Polyporaceae
and the Heterobasidiomycetes and published a number of valuable
notes on European po lypores.
P ersonally, DONK had a good humoured, often witty mind, and he was
always helpful to those who asked for his opinion on nomenelature matters.
He spoke several languages fluently and was elected as a mernber of
several international scientific committees. More than once he was the
natural chairman on scientific meetings. For instance, he was President of
the Third European Mycological Congress in Glasgow 1963 .
A list of his scientific publications is given in Persoonia, vol. 7 (2) :
120-1 26. Bergen, August 1974.
CONNY RIBER RASMUSSEN
1924 - 1973
Forsøgsleder, cand. hort. CONNY RIBER RASMUSSEN afgik ved døden i
Canada den 12. juni 1973, kun 49 år gammel. Hermed afsluttedes brat et
usædvanlig virksomt livsløb.
Allerede som barn begyndte RIBER R ASMUSSEN at eksperimentere med
champignondyrkning, men datidens talrige problemer m ed denne specialkultur
blev en udfordring for livet. Efter kandidateksamen (1950 ) tog han
på studieophold til de dengang mest betydende champignonforsøgscentre
i Holland, England og USA for derefter at vende hjem i 1952 og blive