American mycologist and plant pathologist. Stevens' early career focused on research into diseases of crops, while he later concentrated on mycological taxonomy, particularly looking at the fungi of tropical countries, and collecting much material.
Frank Lincoln Stevens was born in Onondaga County, New York, and spent his early years on a farm near Syracuse. Here he developed his interest in nature, making a comprehensive collection of the ferns of the county and gathering a few geological specimens, too. Without formal instruction in chemistry, he passed high school level examinations in the subject thanks to his own reading and homemade laboratory. Advised by David G. Fairchild at the Agricultural Experiment Station of Geneva, New York, he decided to study botany (especially plant pathology) at Rutgers University.
Following his graduation Stevens taught at Racine College and at the high school in Columbus, Ohio, where he was able to make use of the laboratories at Ohio University. It was at this time he became interested in the parasitic fungus Albugo, after a woodland ramble. He went on to write his PhD thesis on this fungus at the University of Chicago, completed in 1900, at which time the university awarded him a travelling fellowship, allowing him to study at Bonn, Halle and Naples.
On his return to the U.S., Stevens was appointed instructor in biology at North Carolina State University, and became Professor of Botany and Vegetable Pathology in 1902. In the same year, Stevens' wife, Adeline, became the first woman on the university's science faculty, teaching biology. At the university's research station Stevens pursued his interest in plant pathology, identifying the local tobacco disease Granville Wilt and looking at the breeding and selection of other crops resistant to wilt disease. With his colleague John Galentine Hall he published an important textbook, Diseases of Economic Plants, in 1910, two years before he resigned from his post at the university. During his time at North Carolina he also collaborated on children's books about agriculture. The next two years (1912-1914) he spent at the University of Puerto Rico as Dean of Agriculture, where he collected Puerto Rican fungi and prepared his book, The Fungi Which Cause Plant Disease.
Back to the U.S. Stevens was appointed Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of Illinois, where he remained until his death in 1934. During his long tenure at Illinois he actively collected in South America, Hawaii and the Philippines and wrote on parasitic fungi from British Guiana (Guyana) and Trinidad, Costa Rica and Panama. His memberships were numerous, including the American Phytopathological Society (of which he was president in 1910), the Botanical Society of America and the Mycological Society of America.
Sources:
L.R. Tehon, 1935, "Frank Lincoln Stevens", Mycologia, 27(1): 1-5
NC State University, History of the Dept of Botany:
www.cals.ncsu.edu/plantbiology/history/dept_history.html, accessed 20 December 2011.
