Vilmos Kőfaragó-Gyelnik

{{Short description|Hungarian lichenologist (1906–1945)}} '''Vilmos Kőfaragó-Gyelnik''' (March 30, 1906 – March 15, 1945) was a Hungarian botanist and lichenologist.

Prior to earning his PhD in 1929 from Budapest University, he spent a year in Cairo to help organize a botanical museum.<ref name="Versegy 1963"/> In 1930 he started work at Hungarian National Museum, where he curated the lichen collections.<ref name="Hale 1990"/> Gyelnik married Theresa Hofflinger on 30 May 1930, with whom he had a son in 1932. Gyelnik maintained a friendly correspondence with American amateur lichenologist Charles Christian Plitt for several years until Plitt's death in 1933. In the 1930s, it was common for Hungarians with non-Hungarian sounding names to alter them if they desired political appointments. Gyelnik prefixed Kőfaragó (meaning "stone-cutter") to his name in 1935, and eventually became the head of the Botanical Department of the museum in 1942.<ref name="Hale 1990"/> On March 15, 1945, Gyelnik was killed in Austria by Allied bombing.<ref name="Kirk et al. 2008"/>

Gyelnik published about 100 papers on lichens in the period 1926 to 1945, and proposed hundreds of new names, particularly in the genera ''Alectoria'', ''Nephroma'', ''Parmelia'', and ''Peltigera''.<ref name="Kirk et al. 2008"/> He described about 1300 new taxa, including 264 new species.<ref name="Lőkös & Farkas 1999"/> His work, however, was not without detractors, who thought he published too hastily, and sometimes forgot what he had published earlier. According to Mason Hale, Gyelnik "infuriated or at least antagonized virtually every contemporary lichenologist".<ref name="Hale 1990"/> Ana Crespo and colleagues expressed a similar sentiment: "He was generally viewed as something of a nomenclatural terrorist by his contemporaries who were infuriated by the large numbers of novel taxa he described, most of which they could not accept, and an apparent slackness in how he worked".<ref name="Crespo et al. 2011"/> However, Hale also noted his deep understanding of the genus ''Xanthoparmelia'' and suggested that he was ahead of his time for using chemical tests and various morphological characters in devising his own classification system for European parmelioid lichens – some of which were used to define genera many decades later.<ref name="Hale 1990"/> Between 1933 and 1937 Kőfaragó-Gyelnik edited and distributed three exsiccatae.<ref name="Triebel & Scholz 2001-2024">Triebel, D. & Scholz, P. 2001–2024 ''IndExs – Index of Exsiccatae''. – Botanische Staatssammlung München: http://indexs.botanischestaatssammlung.de. – München, Germany.</ref>

Gyelnik is honoured in the name of the species ''Verrucaria gyelnikii'' {{small|Servít (1939)}}, ''Polyblastia gyelnikiana'' {{small|Servít (1946)}}, ''Thelidium gyelnikii'' {{small|Servít (1946)}}, ''Parmelia gyelnikii'' {{small|C.W.Dodge (1959)}},<ref name="Hannes et al. 2017"/> and ''Psorotichia gyelnikii'' {{small|S.Y. Kondr., Lőkös & Hur (2016)}}.<ref name="Kondratyuk et al. 2016"/>

==References== {{Reflist|colwidth=30em|refs=

<ref name="Crespo et al. 2011">{{cite journal |last1=Crespo |first1=Ana |last2=Divakar |first2=Pradeep K. |last3=Hawksworth |first3=David L. |title=Generic concepts in parmelioid lichens, and the phylogenetic value of characters used in their circumscription |journal=The Lichenologist |volume=43 |issue=6 |year=2011 |doi=10.1017/s0024282911000570 |pages=511–535|s2cid=87260767 }}</ref>

<ref name="Hale 1990">{{cite book |last1=Hale |first1=Mason E. |title=A Synopsis of the Lichen Genus ''Xanthoparmelia'' (Vainio) Hale (Ascomycotina, Parmeliaceae) |series=Smithsonian Contributions to Botany |issue=74 |year=1990 |pages=2–3 |doi=10.5479/si.0081024X.74}}</ref>

<ref name="Hannes et al. 2017">{{cite journal |first1=Hannes |last1=Hertel |first2=Georg |last2=Gärtner |first3=László |last3=Lőkös |title=Forscher an Österreichs Flechtenflora |trans-title=Investigators of Austria's lichen flora |journal=Stapfia |year=2017 |volume=104 |issue=2 |page=54 |language=de |url=https://www.zobodat.at/biografien/Flechtenforschung_Austria_STAPFIA_0104_2_0001-0211.pdf}}</ref>

<ref name="Kirk et al. 2008">{{cite book |last1=Kirk |first1=Paul M. |last2=Cannon |first2=Paul F. |last3=Minter |first3=David W. |last4=Stalpers |first4=Joost A. |title=Dictionary of the Fungi |edition=10th |publisher=CAB International |location=Wallingford, UK |year=2008 |page=297 |isbn=978-0-85199-826-8}}</ref>

<ref name="Kondratyuk et al. 2016">{{cite journal |last1=Kondratyuk |first1=S. Y. |last2=Lőkös |first2=L. |last3=Halda |first3=J. P. |last4=Upreti |first4=D. K. |last5=Mishra |first5=G. K. |last6=Haji Moniri |first6=M. |last7=Farkas |first7=E. |last8=Park |first8=J. S. |last9=Lee |first9=B. G. |last10=Liu |first10=D. |last11=Woo |first11=J.-J. |last12=Jayalal|first12=R. G. U.|last13=Oh |first13=S.-O. |last14=Hur |first14=J.-S. |title=New and noteworthy lichen-forming and lichenicolous fungi 5 |journal=Acta Botanica Hungarica |volume=58 |issue=3–4 |year=2016 |pages=319–396 |doi=10.1556/ABot.58.2016.3-4.7|url=http://real.mtak.hu/40025/1/abot.58.2016.3-4.7.pdf }}</ref>

<ref name="Lőkös & Farkas 1999">{{cite journal |last1=Lőkös |first1=L. |last2=Farkas |first2=Edit |title=The research of lichenized fungi in Hungary |journal=Acta Microbiologica et Immunologica Hungarica |volume=46 |issue=2–3 |year=1999 |pages=199–203 |doi=10.1556/amicr.46.1999.2-3.7|pmid=10379389 |url=http://real.mtak.hu/62112/1/amicr.46.1999.2-3.7.pdf }}</ref>

<ref name="Versegy 1963">{{cite journal |last1=Versegy |first1=Klara |title=Die Lichenologen Ungarns |year=1963 |journal=Feddes Repertorium Specierum Novarum Regni Vegetabilis |volume=68 |issue=2 |pages=107–129 |doi=10.1002/fedr.19630680206}}</ref>

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kofarago-Gyelnik, Vilmos}} Category:1906 births Category:1945 deaths Category:Budapest University alumni Category:20th-century Hungarian botanists Category:Hungarian lichenologists Category:Scientists from Budapest Category:Hungarian civilians killed in World War II Category:Deaths by airstrike during World War II