Robert Hooke

Robert Hooke was an experimenter, an instrument maker, an architect and an observer of nature. He was born in 1635 on the Isle of Wight, educated at Westminster School and Oxford, and then worked with Robert Boyle on the air pump. In 1662 he became curator of experiments to the newly founded Royal Society. Each week he was to prepare experiments, devices and demonstrations for the fellows, which is why his science combined idea with workshop from the start.

Hooke's most important connection to the history of mycology is Micrographia of 1665. The book contained observations made with a microscope and large copperplate engravings showing structures inaccessible to the naked eye. Plate XII carried a mould with distinct threads and spherical heads. The Harvard University Herbaria describes it as the first illustration of microfungi. Hooke also described the structure of cap fungi, though he knew neither today's cellular terminology nor its taxonomy.

His role was not the formal description of a species. The breakthrough was making observation checkable: the reader was given information about the instrument, the preparation and what the author considered visible. Hooke also understood that an image is a choice. An engraving orders focus, scale and details that cannot all be seen at once in a single microscope field. Today's micrographs still require a description of conditions and scale for the same reason.

Hooke studied elasticity, air, clocks, fossils and the motion of celestial bodies, and after the Great Fire he worked on rebuilding London. The breadth of his interests meant that mycology was not a separate speciality for him. Even so, his observation of mould became an important beginning for the visible anatomy of fungi. It showed that a bloom on a material is not a uniform patch but has a repeatable organisation.

In a profile of Hooke it is worth avoiding the later legend of a lone genius contending solely with Newton. He worked within a network of craftsmen, printers and fellows of the Royal Society. Micrographia was a product of that infrastructure as much as of his eye. The lasting contribution was a culture of experiment: build the instrument, show the preparation, record the limitations, and let others see more.

Plate XII instead of a portrait that does not exist

Hooke’s most important mycological image in the 1665 Micrographia is Plate XII: “blue mould” growing on leather, described by him as an assembly of minute, variously shaped mushrooms. Harvard University Herbaria calls the publication the first illustration of microfungi and the first account of the internal structure of mushrooms. The Royal Society catalogue adds the production history: an unknown engraver cut the copperplate after Hooke’s drawing. A modern species identification should not be added because neither source supplies one.