Arthur Disbrowe Cotton


Arthur Disbrowe Cotton, OBE was an English plant pathologist, mycologist, phycologist, and botanist.
A.D. Cotton was born in London and educated at King's College School and the Royal College of Science, where he completed a degree in botany in 1901. He became a demonstrator there and subsequently at Owens College, Manchester, where he developed an interest in fungi, undertaking research into orchid mycorrhizas.
In 1904 he was appointed assistant to George Massee, head of mycology and cryptogamic plants at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Cotton remained at Kew till 1915, officially working on algae, but also making time to pursue his particular interest in clavarioid fungi.
During this time Cotton collaborated with Elinor Francis Vallentin. Vallentine supplied Cotton with numerous specimens enabling him to undertake the first comprehensive study of Cryptogams from the Falkland Islands.
In 1915 he took charge of a newly established Plant Pathology Laboratory at Kew and in 1920 became Mycologist to the Board of Agriculture. In 1922, he returned to Kew to become Keeper of the Herbarium, a post he retained till his retirement in 1946.
A.D. Cotton was President of the British Mycological Society in 1913 and President of the Linnean Society of London between 1943 and 1946. He received an OBE for services to plant pathology in 1934.
During his career he published a number of papers on plant pathology, fungi, and algae, as well as co-authoring the first seven parts of the supplement to Elwes' Monograph of the genus Lilium. He also described several new taxa of fungi and algae. The marine algal genus Cottoniella Boergesen and the species Fucus cottonii M.J. Wynne & Magne were named after him.
He had married botanist Enid Mary, daughter of John Charles Jesson, in 1913. They had a son and a daughter.

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