András Terpó (1925-2015)

Abstract

András Terpó was born in Vajkóc (today part of Slovakia) in 1925. He earned his degree in pomology at the Faculty of Horticulture and Viticulture, Agricultural University, Budapest in 1951. From then until his retirement in 1995 he spent his entire career at the Department of Botany, being of its head between 1972 and 1989. Among his major achievements is the establishment of the Botanical Garden of the university at Soroksár in 1969, which remains an indispensable tool in the education of horticultural students still today. He had a wide research interest including the origin of cultivated fruits, phytogeography, plant adaptation to new environments, plant taxonomy, urban floras and the biology of alien plants. His main fields of research were the taxonomy and phytogeography of pear (Pyrus) and grape (Vitis) taxa of Hungary, of which he became an internationally renowned expert. He felt teaching and research equally important, and placed special emphasis on presenting new directions of botanical science (e.g. chemotaxonomy, economic botany) to horticultural students. He had a rich publication record. With his passing at the age of 90, we lost a kind person and a botanist of great expertise.