As a young woman, Mary Banning became the caregiver for her mother and sister when they became chronically ill. Despite her family obligations, Banning pursued a growing interest in mycology (the study of fungi), amassing a personal library and herbarium from which to learn. In the late 1860s, she began to observe, describe, and paint in detailed and idiosyncratic watercolors all the fungi of Maryland for a volume that was never published, save the single manuscript she produced herself. Not only was she one of the first women to put a name to an entire group, or taxon, of fungus, but a full 23 of the 175 species she records in the manuscript were unknown in the field at the time. The manuscript pages, with their watercolors and her hand-penned descriptions of each species, make up the primary material on display in “Outcasts: Mary Banning’s World of Mushrooms” at the New York State Museum in Albany. Read more in the review of the show by Alexis Clements (pencilattheready) through ...