Professionalization of natural history research greatly expanded in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, a time in which women were systematically kept under-educated and excluded from formal participation. But fungi — commonly regarded by Western European “gentlemen” as inelegant, useless, gross, and deadly — were considered to be suitable study subjects for women. The lower taxa meant lower prestige and were therefore often relegated to the domain of women as the exploration of fungi and other lower taxa (such as lichens, algae, and mosses) was not considered a serious concern to the male institutions of higher learning. Some men, such as John Lindley (1799–1865), the first professor of botany at the University of London, distinguished between “polite botany,” which included fungi, was for the “amusement” of women, and “botanical science,” which was a serious discipline for men. 
 
Historically, mycology was therefore unique among other organismal fields for having a greater number of notable women contributors, as well as women in positions of leadership in mycological societies. Some accomplished women in the field included Catharina Dörrien, Marie-Anne Libert, Élise-Caroline Bommer née Destrée, Mariette Rousseau née Hannon, Mary Elizabeth Banning, Beatrix Potter, and Annie Lorrain Smith — all self-taught mycologists who contributed substantially to research in the lead up to the 20th century. Barred from formal institutions of science, women in fungal taxonomy were often seen as “isolated eccentrics,” devoting the precious free time they had outside of domestic obligations to pursuing their true love: the science and natural history of misunderstood and maligned organisms.