'The field rose steeply in front of them like a green wall, with blue sky and white clouds above. Many ferns grew at the edge of the wood. Beyond the fringe of ferns there was a colony of yellow funguses spotted about on the turf.' – Beatrix Potter in A Walk Amongst the Funguses, the unpublished sequel to The Fairy Caravan
When you hear the name Beatrix Potter (1866–1943), an image of Peter Rabbit and his little blue jacket might immediately spring to mind, along with other memorable characters such as Squirrel Nutkin, Jemima Puddleduck, or Tom Kitten. Since The Tale of Peter Rabbit was first published in 1901, Beatrix Potter has become synonymous with children's literature, and her writings have been cherished for many generations.
But long before readers were introduced to these classic literary figures, Potter had a strong penchant for the field of mycology – the wondrous world of mushrooms, fungi and lichens.
As a small child, Potter was endlessly curious about the wildlife around her, capturing insects, animals, and plants in her first artworks. She and her brother Bertram kept a menagerie of various creatures, including mice and rabbits and, upon their (natural) passing, boiled them down to their bones for further examination.
Later, as she went into her teenage years, a strong interest in insects and fossils took hold, with Potter using Bertram's microscope to conduct detailed analyses of insect anatomy. Once she began studying mycology more heavily in 1895, her focus became an all-consuming venture. During the 1890s, she produced over 450 watercolour paintings and sketches, which reflected her intense need to record the subjects she drew and painted. It was a true marriage of scientific accuracy and artistic endeavour.
While it's possible that, were Potter alive today, she might have gone so far as to earn a doctorate in natural science, the reality is she never moved beyond her amateur status. Even though she came from an upper-class family, women were typically not permitted to pursue a higher education at that time, especially in sciences. There were a few people in Potter's corner who did their best to encourage her as her interest went from aesthetic to scientific. One of these people was Charles McIntosh who, like Potter, was self-taught in botany.
Known as the Perthshire Naturalist, McIntosh became a well-respected mycological figure after a decades-long career as a postman, whereby he had the opportunity to study the local plant life every day of his route in Perthshire, Scotland. The Potters would spend their summers there, and Beatrix crossed class lines to collaborate with him on her studies and seek his mentorship.
At the time, it was considered unusual for people of different classes to hobnob as equals, especially when they were both unmarried. But their association proved to be most productive, and it was McIntosh who recommended that Potter include multiple angles of a specimen to give her drawings more of a 360-degree view, as presented in this rendering of the waxcap Hygrocybe laeta, which shows the mushroom inside, outside, and even upside down.
Potter's sketches, resulting from what must have been thousands of accumulated hours of study, look as meticulous and realistic as anything one would find in a field guide. Each specimen's unique characteristics are drawn in delicate strokes, from the caps on top to the gills underneath, down along their stems, and their volvas at the bottom. It's as if you can reach out and touch each one's leathery, spongey or waxy surface.
She had a clever way of suggesting to the viewer hints as to the whereabouts of a specimen, be it on a trunk, on a log or amongst the grass. Having context for where a fungus grows can go a long way to helping someone identify or rule out what exactly they've stumbled upon.
It is evident how much Potter revered fungi, given the level of care and attention with which she drew them. In this sketch of Lepiota procera, you can see how the mushroom's growth progress has made the thin brown surface layer start to pull apart, revealing the white underneath and creating a beautifully speckled appearance that resembles tiny shards of chocolate.
Another sketch showing the hollow inside of the stem mirrors the sample on the right.
Eventually, Potter's interest turned persistently scientific, and she began to ponder theories of fungal hybridisation and how fungi reproduce. Her determination led to her seeking access to more elite, resource-rich venues for her studies. Unfortunately, many institutions were exclusive, open only to men and especially those who were professional scientists.
Miss Potter would need an ally to enter such places; in this case, her supporter was her uncle, prominent chemist Sir Henry Roscoe who, thankfully, saw value in her pursuits. He arranged for a meeting between Potter and Sir William Thiselton-Dyer, the director of the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens. He regarded Potter's work with some interest, if not unguarded confusion, and issued her a student card before promptly ignoring her and talking at length with her uncle as the three walked to the train station.
As in childhood, Potter continually practised collecting various mycological specimens and eventually began germinating them herself. She was certain that most fungi were capable of forming a mould, like yeast, which she believed to be a hybrid.
Around the time that Potter began to put her theories forward, Thiselton-Dyer sent a letter to Roscoe about Potter that was apparently so uncomplimentary that he wouldn't let her read it. Thoroughly incensed, his response was to urge his niece to write a paper detailing her proposals that could be presented to the natural history-focused Linnean Society of London.
She wrote it, but the organisation did not yet offer memberships to women, no matter their wealth. Sir Roscoe presented her paper titled 'On the Germination of the Spores of Agaricineae' to the society's members on her behalf in 1897. But given that she was a woman and not a university-educated professional, it was not taken very seriously, and no copy survives. Her theories were eventually verified and her contributions acknowledged, while her illustrations are held in high regard by scientists to this day for their accuracy.
Ultimately, Potter's triumph is that she didn't wallow in her dismissals. In 1901, she self-published The Tale of Peter Rabbit after it kept getting rejected because she wanted a small book designed for the small hands of those who would read it. When it sold out, it was picked up by Frederick Warne & Co. and the rest, as they say, is history.
By all accounts, she had a many-passioned and richly storied life, and while her interest in the natural world never waned, she channelled it into different outlets for the rest of her days, as a beloved storyteller, farmer and conservationist.
For certain, Beatrix Potter became a household name whose work has, for over a hundred years, served as inspiration for countless artists and creative minds. But it will forever be a shame that she was unable to pursue her mycological interests as far as she wanted to.
What if the institutional barriers of the day, both cultural and misogynistic, had not been in place to stop her?
What if, instead of the end of the nineteenth century, it had been thirty or fifty years later? What other discoveries would Potter have made? Would we have accolades and scientific scholarships in her honour? Sadly, we will never really know.
Meaghan Steeves, writer
This content was funded by the Bridget Riley Art Foundation
Like these drawings? Prints of Beatrix Potter's works are available to purchase in the Art UK Shop!
Further reading
Matthew Dennison, 'Over the Hills and Far Away': The Life of Beatrix Potter, Head of Zeus, 2016
Sarah Gristwood, The Story of Beatrix Potter: Her Enchanting Work and Surprising Life, National Trust Books, 2016
Linda Lear, Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature, St Martins Press, 2007
Leslie Linder, A History of the Writings of Beatrix Potter, Warne, 1971
Mushroom Revival podcast, 'Beatrix Potter Was a Mycologist', episode 88, 2021
National Trust podcast, 'The Tale of Beatrix Potter', 2022
Emily Zach, The Art of Beatrix Potter: Sketches, Paintings, and Illustrations, Chronicle Books, 2016
