Cooke came from a mercantile family in Horning, Norfolk, and worked as an apprentice to a fabric merchant before becoming a clerk in a law firm, but his chief interest was in botany. He founded the Society of Amateur Botanists in 1862. He taught natural history at Holy TrinityNational School, Lambeth, and worked as a curator at the India Museum at India Office from 1860 to 1879. In 1879 when the botanical collections from the India Museum were transferred to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Cooke went with them. He received the Victoria Medal of Honour from the Royal Horticultural Society in 1902 and the Linnean Medal from the Linnean Society of London in 1903. He was awarded several honorary diplomas for his work, primarily with fungi, a Master of Arts from St. Lawrence University in 1870, a Master of Arts from Yale University in 1873 and a doctorate from the New York University. Cooke took part in the publication, together with Edward Step, of the monthly magazine Hardwicke's Science-Gossip: A Monthly Medium of Interchange and Gossip for Students and Lovers of Nature from 1865 to 1893. From 1872 to 1894 Cooke also edited Grevillea, a monthly record of cryptogamic botany and its literature, a periodical devoted to the study of mushrooms. He was one of the founders of the Quekett Microscopical Club in 1865, in response to a request in Science-Gossip.
Selected works
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A Manual of Structural Botany: for the use of classes, schools, & private students... With upwards of 200 illustrations by Ruffle
Handbook of British Fungi, with full descriptions of all the species and illustrations of the genera
Report on the Gums, Resins, Oleo-Resins, and Resinous Products in the India Museum, or produced in India. Prepared under the direction of the Reporter on the Products of India
Fungi: their nature, influence, and uses
Report on the Oil Seeds and Oils in the India Museum, or produced in India. Prepared under the direction of the Reporter on the Products of India
The Myxomycetes of Great Britain, translated from the Polish of J. T. Rostafinski
Clavis Synoptica Hymenomycetum Europaeorum, with L. Quelet
Mycographia, seu Icones fungorum. Figures of fungi from all parts of the world, drawn and illustrated by M. C. Cooke
British Fresh-Water Algae. Exclusive of Desmidieæ and Diatomaceæ, etc..
Fungi Australianai, reprinted from Grevillea
British Desmids. A supplement to British Fresh-Water Algae, etc.
Introduction to Fresh-Water Algae with an enumeration of all the British species... With thirteen plates, etc.
Handbook of Australian Fungi
Vegetable Wasps and Plant Worms. A popular history of entomogeneous fungi or fungi parasitic upon insects... With... illustrations
Romance of Low Life amongst Plants. Facts and phenomena of cryptogamic vegetation.
Handbook of British Hepaticae, etc.
Down the Lane and back, in search of wild flowers. By Uncle Matt
Through the Copse. Another ramble after flowers with Uncle Matt
Around a Cornfield, in a ramble after wild flowers. By Uncle Matt
Across the Common, after wild flowers. By Uncle Matt
Introduction to the Study of Fungi: their organography, classification, and distribution. For the use of collectors
Object-Lesson Handbooks to accompany the Royal Portfolio of Pictures and Diagrams
Introduction to Fresh-Water Algae
Fungoid Pests of Cultivated Plants
Catalogue and Field-Book of British Basidiomycetes up to and Inclusive of the Year 1908
