Reginald Buller: The Poet-Scientist of Mushroom City (Biography‪)‬

Many stories are told about A. H. Reginald Buller, one of the University of Manitoba's first science professors. Some are even true. (1) In the 1970s, as an undergraduate student in the department that Buller founded in 1904, I knew exactly three things about him: he was a mycologist (a specialist on fungus), he had lived in a cheap hotel for his entire career, and he had written a famous limerick. Twenty-five years later, now as a faculty member, I dug through Buller's voluminous papers (2) for the centennial of the University's Faculty of Science, in 2004. This caused me to improve dramatically my own understanding of Buller, and to winnow truth from fiction. My objective is, therefore, to provide a portrait of Professor Buller which is, perhaps, truer to the person than the many fawning biographies written after his death in 1944, and the subsequent hazy anecdotes repeated by those who never met the man. I will deal only in passing with his research accomplishments, as his large collection of books and articles speaks for itself. I will focus instead on aspects of his life and times that have eluded the story-tellers, collectively revealing a person who is more complex and human than our stereotype allows. In the process, we gain insight into the origins of the modern University of Manitoba and one of its earliest, and certainly most colorful, builders. Germination