Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis 6. (1969)

Szujkóné Lacza Júlia: Megemlékezés Andreánszky Gáborról (1895–1967)

scientist's thoughts, these discussions will remain a never fading experience. In a relatively short time, Andreánszky attained his first great synthesis in his textbook „Paleobotany", published in 1954. Even at the time of working up the fossil finds, he was often preoccupied with the theoretical problems of vegetational genetics; the scope of his book now goes far beyond the mere textbook Hevel. In accordance with study requirements, he presents a precise account of the subject of paleobotany and a description of its place in natural sciences, subsequent to the history of paleobotany, he discusses the means of fossilization. And then at once appears a highly independent epochal grading and an original tabulation, thus integrating the community conditions of plants with geology. As if to support this he summarizes thereafter his phylogenetical contentions. In this chapter, all his previous experiences, the morphological or organic transformation of species, genera, and families, as well as the devolvement or disappearance of plant associations, are evaluated in the sequence and as a function on the chronological changes of the environmental factors. The paleophytological section, submitting a survey of the plant fossils is, together with the construed phylogenetical tree, an egregious proof of his systematical and morphological knowledge. The periodical scheme is original and rests on the changing plant cover. There are distinguished the treeless and primordial shrubby periods, and the early age of forests, this latter having been constituted by sporiferous and graniferous plants extinct today. In the middle age of forests, there appear, in the wake of changing environmental conditions, sago-palm forms and the ancient conifers. In the latest age of forests, recent conifers and angiosperms come to the fore, concomitantly with the extinction of many „old" types. By its ecological adaptation and the means of variegated life-forms, the kingdom of plants had at that time already entirely covered dry lands. Our home paleobotanical findings mainly derive from this latest age of the forests, the geological Tertiary. Andreánszk follows in his discussion; the flora of the Cretaceous to the presentation of the Pleistocene floras and vegetation. In the meantime, the concept of the evolution of life-forms had further crystallized: his paper on „The evolutional centres of life forms", published in 1954, states that „Life-form had thus evolved, aside of environmental conditions actually having created the epharmonic life-form, by the interaction, and as a result, of two further factors, namely the corresponding family or the respective systematical unit, and geographical position." Furthermore, „inasmuch as life-form, is bound to a systematical unit, it is usually bound also to a definite geographical area and not merely to any determined environmental collective." At this time, Andreánszky turned his entire attention to paleobotanical investigations and the augmentation of the collection of the Botanical Department, jointly with his colleagues and former students who followed him to this branch of science (G., Cziffery. E.. Horváth, É., Ko

váts, I., Pálfalvy, and recently I. Skoflek). His interest turned more and more to the complete exposition of the materials of the famous Hungarian paleobotanical sites and the reconstructions of the floras and vegetation of the several ages. His elaborations of certain genera (Acer, Quercus etc.), frequently involving also paleohistological examinations, represent significal advances also in paleosystematics. His monography, „Die Flora der sarmatischen Stufe in Ungarn" (pp. 360), appeared in 1959. In the 12