23 April 2004

The Legacy of E. Grant Smith, an Extraordinary Amateur Scientist

Forrest M. Mims III

Recently I learned about the legacy of the late E. Grant Smith, an extraordinary amateur scientist whose book "Sampling and Identifying Allergenic Pollens and Molds" is considered one of the best ever published in its field. Here's the rest of the story.

A Nigrospora spore found in a Texas air sample. Click image to enlarge.

My wife Minnie has asthma, and she is very sensitive to various mold spores and pollens. So I have long wanted to take up an interest in collecting air samples and find out their biological content.

This goal stayed low on the list until our daughter Sarah made her first major scientific discovery in 2002. When she was only 15, Sarah found that smoke arriving in Texas is loaded with high concentrations of fungal spores and bacteria, a finding which has earned her many science awards, magazine articles in the Australia, Canada and the United States, and a feature article on NASA's Earth Observatory web site (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/SmokeSecret/smoke_secret.html).

Sarah's discovery also resulted in her first scientific paper (Sarah A. Mims and Forrest M. Mims III, Fungal spores are transported long distances in smoke from biomass fires, Atmospheric Environment 38, 651-655, 5 February 2004).

All this significantly raised my interest in identifying pollen and spores in air samples. So we invested in a better microscope for Sarah to use and purchased Bryce Kendrick's "The Fifth Kingdom" book and CD-ROM (see www.mycolog.com), an outstanding tutorial and reference with numerous images of fungi and their spores.

Chapter 8 of the Fifth Kingdom, "Spore Dispersal in Fungi–Airborne Spores and Allergy," closes with a photograph of a remarkable page in E. Grant Smith's "Sampling and Identifying Allergenic Pollens and Molds" (see www.blewstonepress.com/). This page features crystal clear microphotographs of 22 genuses and species of common airborne fungal spores. It is one of 16 similar pages filled with microphotographs of spores and many more featuring pollen. Smith made the photographs himself of pollen and spores that he collected using a new kind of automated spore trap that he designed. Kendrick wrote in "The Fifth Kingdom" that, "As of March 2003, it is still the best available compilation of illustrations of airborne spores."

Sarah and I decided we had to have this book, but the lowest price we could find was $147. When we found the book for $125, I ordered it. It's the most expensive single volume I've ever purchased, but it is now among the most important books in the Mims family library. Sarah wishes she could have had Smith's remarkable book when she was spending hours at the microscope scanning her microscope slides for spores.

"Sampling and Identifying Allergenic Pollens and Molds" is more than a book of microphotographs, for it also includes seven chapters about various aspects of aerobiology. Smith wrote four of these chapters and other recognized experts wrote three, including Bryce Kendrick. The 195-page book has a plastic comb binder that allows it to lay flat when it is being used alongside the microscope.

No book is perfect, and I only wish this one included even more spores. Also, I was puzzled that Nigrospora (see image above) was not included or cited, even though clear examples are clearly visible in a photograph of an Alternaria on page 134 and an Exosporium monanthotaxis on page 144, Nor is there any mention of the numerous particles visually obvious in many of the microphotographs. These particles include mineral dust, black carbon and apparent insect fragments. But this is normal procedure for allergists, who tend only to report pollen and spores in air.

These minor criticisms disappear when one views the astonishingly detailed microphotographs in this work. Kendrick is right. This book is the best available in its field.

Smith's book is so professionally written and photographed that one can be excused for assuming that he was a professional mycologist. Yet Smith was not a trained as a scientist. After he retired as an officer in the U.S. Air Force, he became a university economics professor. Allergies caused Smith major problems, for which had to seek medical treatment. Eventually, he and his wife Dorothy retired to San Antonio, Texas, where Smith took up a serious interest in physically identifying the spores and pollens that caused him so much distress. He purchased a high quality microscope and a camera, designed the Simplair spore and pollen collector and went to work. "Sampling and Identifying Allergenic Pollens and Molds" was released in 1990. A second edition was published in 2000.

E. Grant Smith represents the very best of amateur science. Though his knowledge of pollens and spores was completely self taught, Smith designed a novel kind of air sampler and became an expert microphotographer and pollen and mold spore taxonomist. Though he died in 1991, his legacy lives on with his book, which has become a classic among professionals, and in his air sampler, which is commercially available from Environmental Sampling Systems (www.emssales.net). Smith is survived by his wife Dorothy, from whom "Sampling and Identifying Allergenic Pollens and Molds" can be purchased by contacting her through www.blewstonepress.com/index.shtm).