Roger Heim

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Roger Heim (February 12, 1900 – September 17, 1979) was a French botanist who specialized in mycology and tropical plant pathology. He studied at the University of Paris and at the Ecole Centrale, initially pursuing engineering before turning to biology to study fungi. He became known for his work on the structure of the mushroom hymenium and for his classification and study of the evolution of higher fungi, including groups like Lactarius, Russula, the Russulales, and Secotium. He also studied tropical fungi such as Termitomyces and did ethnomycology on hallucinogenic mushrooms like Psilocybe and Stropharia, publishing more than 560 articles and major works.

In the 1920s–1950s Heim held key roles at the French National Museum of Natural History (MNHN). He was curator of cryptogamy, started the Revue de mycologie, and led botanical missions in Europe and Africa. He created exsiccata collections under the title Cryptogames de l'empire colonial Français. He became director of the MNHN from 1951 to 1965, promoting nature conservation. He presided over the 8th International Botanical Congress in Paris in 1954 and was President of IUCN from 1954 to 1958. During World War II he joined the French resistance and was imprisoned in Buchenwald, Mauthausen, and Gusen for fourteen months.

He received many honors, including Grand Officier de la Légion d'Honneur and Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, as well as the Darwin–Wallace Medal in 1958 and election as Honorary Member of the Mycological Society of America in 1973. Heim worked with ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson in Mexico, collecting Psilocybe and Stropharia, and he later cultivated many hallucinogenic mushrooms in his laboratory. He also collaborated with Albert Hofmann, whose work led to the isolation of psilocybin and psilocin. Heim died in Paris in 1979.