Kaszab Zoltán (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 76. (Budapest 1984)

Szujkó-Lacza, J.: Centenarian anniversary of the birth of Sándor Jávorka

He became corresponding member of (he Hungarian Academy of Science in 1936 and was elected full member in 1943. The first monograph of the Hungarian Onosma was published by him in 1906. Onosma tornense JÁVORKA was described in this monograph. This species is today one of the strictly protected since it is an endemic one. The major results of his floristical and taxonomical studies are "Magyar Flóra" "Flora Hungarica" I. II. (1924-25) and JÁVORKA & CSAPODY: "A magyar flóra képekben" "Iconographia Florae Hungarica" (1929-1934). This was the first complete floral treatise for the Carpathians and the Carpathian Basin. The "A magyar növényvilág kézikönyve" (Handbook of the plant-kingdom of Hungary) by Soó and JÁVORKA (1951) was a new edition of the Flora Hungarica. This new flora work included the cenological and medicinal characters of species occurring in present-day Hungary. He was awarded the "Kossuth prize" and medal for his activity in scientific research and specially for this handbook. He spent 17 years writing the book Flora Hungarica based on studying 100-120,000 herbarium sheets in the collection Flora Hungarica as well as those which were collected by himself. "Magyar gyógynövények" (Hungarian medicinal plants) by JÁVORKA and coworkers (1948), "Kerti virágaink" (Garden flowers) (1961) presented the continuity in his work till to the day of his death. As a museologist he revised and published data from the Herbarium Kitaibelianum (1926-1936, 1945). The biography KITAIBEL was also published by JÁVORKA, in 1957. Though in his youth his botany teacher was Andrej KMET' (1841-1908), the ideal in his scientific work was Paul Kitaibel (cf. JÁVORKA 1957). VERA CSAPODY was his principle coworker for 40 years. The most popular botanical book, "Erdő-mező virágai" (Flowers of forest and meadow) was also a joint publication of JÁVORKA & CSAPODY (1950). This book attained numerous new editions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. A complete list of his scientific and popular papers have been published by ZÓLYOMI (1961). The "JÁVORKA Sándor" memorial room in the Botanical Department of Hungarian Natural History Museum, a single street named after him in Budapest and there is also one in Alsógöd, an agricultural bigh-shool, the "Jávorka Sándor szakközépiskola", a commemorative column at Tata (Fig. 2) and a small monument in the Botanical Garden in the university of Szeged (established by professor I. HORVÁTH) commemorate his name. Prominent representatives of the Hungarian Natural History Museum, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Biological Society lay flowers at his grave, furthermore the Academy and the Museum held a JÁVORKA Sándor memorial meeting in March 1983. Bálint ZÓLYOMI, Tamás Pócs and Júlia SZUJKÓ-LACZA called up the memory of JÁVORKA at this meeting in the building of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. At the same time an exhibition entitled "One hundred years ago was JÁVORKA Sándor born" was organized by the Directorate of the Botanical Department of the Hungarian Natural History Museum. Nature protection has recently evoked interest in floristical sciences. We endeavour to follow in our work the example set by JÁVORKA by studying among others the flora of the Hungarian national parks.