F.E.Stoll is a prominent researcher of Baltic German origin of the early 20th century, who devoted his work and knowledge to the investigation and protection of nature. The main fields of his activities were ornithology and mycology.
F.E. Stoll was born on October 3, 1874 in a rectory in Daugavgriva by Riga. After studying at the Riga grammar school, he mastered dermoplastics at the “Linnaea” Institute in Berlin. In 1893, he joined the Riga Society of Natural Scientists, with which his further life and work were connected. Since 1895, he had been in charge of the Ornithology Department of this Society’s Museum.
Since 1917, he had been a natural science teacher in different German schools in Riga. He delivered numerous lectures, both in Latvia and abroad. Year after year, he organised exhibitions of fungi, thereby extending the public knowledge of fungi. In 1939, F.E.Stoll moved to Germany and, in 1942, established the Birds Protection Station “Kranichbruch” by Schnabel. Later he established and was in charge of the Nature Department at the Nature Protection and Fatherland History Museum in Leer. In 1955, he was awarded the State Cross (Bundesverdienstkreuz). F.E.Stoll died on September 21, 1966 in Hessel, Germany.
Among the greatest F.E.Stoll’s publications, the following should be mentioned: “Tier- und Pflanzenleben am Rigaschen Strande” (“Life of Animals and Plants in Riga’s Jurmala”) in 1931, and “Latvia’s Fungi” (“Latvijas sçnes”), which was published in 1934 in the Young Scientist’s series.
In the 1920s and 1930s, he turned to the investigation of Latvia’s fungi. At that time, he was the only researcher of agarics in Latvia. F.E.Stoll did not collect a fungal herbarium, but carefully investigated and drew his finds. In the drawing sheets, not only fungi themselves can be seen, but also data on fungal microscopic features are available; their growth sites and gathering time are also mentioned. This fungi water-colour collection represents rare and interesting fungi, such as Amanita eliae, Boletus parasiticus, Geaster pectinatus, Polyporus schweinitzii, Poronia punctata, Sparassis crispa, etc.
In 1998, F.E.Stoll’s daughter, Katharina Bickerich-Stoll, following her father’s wishes, presented the drawings collection to the Botanical Department of the Latvian University’s Museum, where it is kept also now. His collection of fungi water-colours and publications form the gold fund, on which the further studies of the fungi in the second half of the 20th century are based.
In 2000, with the support of F.E.Stoll’s former disciple D.A.Loeber, the Latvian Nature Museum published the book “Latvia’s Fungi. F.E.Stoll’s Water-Colours”. The book contains the scientist’s biography, a list of the most important publications and 162 water-colours of Latvia’s fungi. For each fungus drawn by Ferdinand Stoll, its location and year are specified. So that the book could serve as a small handbook of fungi, where the species’ growth sites, substrate, growth time and occurrence are specified.