Edred John Henry Corner FRS[1] (12 January 1906 – 14 September 1996) was an English mycologist and botanist who occupied the posts of assistant director at the Singapore Botanic Gardens (1929–1946) and Professor of Tropical Botany at the University of Cambridge (1965–1973).
His father joined the British Mycological Society and took his 14-year-old son on one of the forays where Corner had the chance to rub shoulders with mycologists such as Carleton Rea and AHR Buller.
Corner went to enlist in the Singapore Volunteer Force, but an attack by one of his collecting monkeys left him unable to participate.
[1] Corner was conscripted by the Japanese to protect and preserve the Botanical Gardens' herbarium collection and various library contents from looters during the time of occupation.
The Japanese Emperor Hirohito was an orchid enthusiast and approved the decision to keep Corner at his post at the Gardens.
The caveat was that the Japanese identified Corner as an enemy alien and required him to wear a red star.
Because of these freedoms, Corner was accused by some of collaborating with the enemy, while in reality he cooperated just enough to keep the herbarium collection safe.
For research on the phytogeography of Ficus he visited Bougainville in 1960 and took part in the Royal Society Expedition to Solomon Islands in 1965.
[9] One of the qualities that made Corner such a remarkable scientist was his analytical skills; his legacy in mycology resides in the conclusions he was able to draw on fungal morphology and development as well as systematics.
[10] During his internment in Singapore, he published on Malaysian wood-rotting polypores, especially economically important ones such as Phellinus noxius.
[13] In his research, Corner stressed the importance of understanding the development and anatomy of fungi, which he realised could not be known just by observing one stage of the specimen.
Arguably, his most important contribution on fungal development was determining the role of the basidium as a charged ampoule.
[16] Corner also wrote monographs on tricholomatoid,[17][18] cantharelloid,[19][20] clavarioid[13][21] and polyporoid[12] fungi, as well as the genus Thelephora.
Additionally, these monographs provide the framework for helping mycologists understand the extent of biodiversity in tropical ecosystems.
Even though his physical capacities declined sharply due to muscular paralysis and he was near blindness, Corner's mental faculties remained sharp until his death in 1996.
Corner, the relentless botanist (Landmark Books, Singapore, 2013, 413 pages, photographs, notes and bibliography, ISBN 978-981-4189-47-7), based on letters, pictures and other memorabilia his father had saved for him in a suitcase.