He earned his Ph.D. in botany from the University of Michigan in 1916 under the tutelage of Calvin Henry Kauffman[2] while investigating the parasite-host relationships of various rust fungi.

[1] He was appointed Assistant Botanist at the Purdue University Agricultural Experimental Station by Joseph Charles Arthur in 1916.

[2] Mains' collections and research greatly enriched the University of Michigan Herbarium, which developed "from a position of obscurity to one of international prominence"[1] under his directorship.

Lundell investigated the flora of the high rain forest and mountain pine ridge in the southern El Cayo District, British Honduras in 1937.

As of 2014, 55 of his species, both new forms, two varieties, and 18 recombinations are still accepted (having not been assigned to another genus or reduced to synonymy under previously published names).

Brodie, Fisher, Imshaug, Lowe, and Smith all mentored a number of students, including Joseph Ammirati, Howard E. Bigelow, Irwin M. Brodo, Robert Lee Gilbertson, Orson K. Miller Jr., and Harry Thiers, all of whom have been greatly influential in American mycology.