Historically, mycology was a branch of botany (fungi are evolutionarily more closely related to animals than to plants but this was not recognized until a few decades ago). Pioneer mycologists included Elias Magnus Fries, Christian Hendrik Persoon, Anton de Bary and Lewis David von Schweinitz. Today, the most comprehensively studied and understood fungi are the yeasts and eukaryotic model organisms Saccharo-myces cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces pombe.