Balint Zólyomi

* Bratislava, 31 May 1908 – † Budapest, 21 September 1997 / botanist, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1970) ; ; He began his higher education at the University of Budapest and completed it at the University of Debrecen in 1931. Between 1930 and 1934 he was an assistant professor at the Department of Botany at the University of Debrecen under Rezső Soó. Between 1934 and 1940 he was the assistant keeper of the MNM's herbarium, then until 1946 he was the director of the Eötvös Loránd Dormitory in Szeged. In 1946 he was a colleague of the Budapest Museum of Natural History, and between 1950 and 1966 he was the head of the Herbarium. Between 1954 and 1977 he was the director of the Botanical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Vácrátót. After that he worked as a scientific advisor to the institution. His work focused on plant associology and ecology. He was primarily interested in the history of the formation of specific plant communities (rock meadows, bogs, loess steppe grasslands). He applied and later perfected the method of pollen analysis for vegetation history during his early research on peat bogs in the 1930s (e.g. Kelemér Mohos lakes, 1931). As a result of his research, in 1942 he demonstrated the Central Danube flora selector and recognized the dolomite phenomenon that promotes the formation of microclimate spaces and thus favors the survival of relict plant populations. In 1950, together with Rezső Soó, he initiated the phytogeographical mapping work of Hungary. In May 1950, he and his colleagues identified the Virginian moonwort (Borychium virginianum), which is unique on the continent, in the area of the Kunfehértó (oak) City Forest. In 1952, he summarized the changes in the plant cover of Hungary from the Cenozoic glaciation to recent times in a monographic work. He also dealt extensively with Vince Borbás' theory of the origin of the Great Plain flora, the Ősmátra theory. As a result of the protracted and partial coverage of phytogeographic mapping, he prepared his vegetation map of Hungary in 1967. He introduced the climate statistical procedure based on the frequency distribution of ecologically relevant climatic year types into the research. Together with historian György Györffy, they examined the conquest of Hungary from a new perspective, from the side of the natural environment. In 1953, he received the Kossuth Prize, and in 1991, he received the Pro Natura commemorative medal. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences elected him a corresponding member in 1951 and a full member in 1970. ; ; His main works: ; Climate and plant cover changes since the Ice Age in the Bükk Mountains region, 1931, ; Results of botanical research in the Szigetköz, 1937, ; The Central Danube flora selector and the dolomite phenomenon, 1942, ; The history of the development of the plant cover of Hungary since the last Ice Age (academic chair holder), 1952, ; The natural plant cover of Budapest and its surroundings, 1958, ; Reconstructed vegetation map of Hungary (academic chair holder), 1971.