B. Papp szerk.: Studia Botanica Hungarica 38. 2007 (Budapest, 2007)

Barina, Zoltán: Pál Kitaibel was born 250 years ago. (3 February 1757, Nagymarton - 13 December 1817, Pest)

The Kitaibel bibliography was compiled by JÁVORKA (1957). Later, Péter Andrássy issued a continuation of this bibliography between 1957-1993 (ANDRÁSSY 1994), followed by additional works published between 1994-1996 (ANDRÁSSY 1997). The botanist Pál Kitaibel can be well characterised by two major achievements: the collecting journeys in the territory of historical Hungary (these trips partly were made together with his friend and benefactor, Adam Waldstein), which resulted in the accumulation of collections (including new species) and written travel diaries; and the "Icones", his huge and beautiful work jointly made with Waldstein. During his collecting trips he basically covered the entire Carpathian Basin and collected significant quantities of dried and living plant material. He kept good records of these trips, made descriptions and notes (in German language), not only on the plants he observed, but also on other important information {e.g. GOMBOCZ 1939, GOMBOCZ and HORVÁTH 1939, 1941, POZDER 1985, SZERENCSÉS and POZDER 1985, PRISZTER 2001, ANDRÁSSY 2004). Kitaibel's travel diaries prepared between 1796-1805 were processed by GOMBOCZ (1945), and subsequently Kitaibel's shorter but no less important journeys before 1796 were elaborated by HARMATTÁ (1962,1963). At last, his travel diaries after the year of 1805 (LŐKÖS 2001 ) and the routes of his research trips (GUSZLEV and PRISZTER 2001) were also published. Although the bulk of the herbarium of Kitaibel comes from his journeys, a good number of specimens were gathered in botanical gardens or received through exchanges with his foreign and Hungarian counterparts {e.g. Baumgarten, De Candolle, Generisch, Lumnitzer, Rochel, Willdenow). Numerous specimens of his collections can be found exclusively in other collections of those in regular contact with him. His herbarium, shortly after his death, was purchased by Joseph Palatinus for the predecessor of the Hungarian Natural History Museum and was kept and managed as a separate collection ever since. The first cataloguing of the herbarium of Kitaibel was completed by Károly Haberle in 1818, followed by another recording by Antal Ramisch in 1840. Later a novel catalogue was compiled during the directorate of Nándor Filarszky. However, all of these remained in manuscript. Among other collections, at first the algae of the herbarium of Kitaibel were elaborated and published by ISTVÁNFFI (1891); subsequently, the fungi were