Department of Botany

Last modified: 09. February 2024

Department of Botany

The Department was forged from the long-standing departments of two previous institutions. It developed from the roots of the former Botany Department of the University of Horticulture in Budapest, and the GATE Department of Botany and Plant Physiology in Gödöllő, adapting to the high expectations at the time. Its units, which are also closely related to the Botanic Gardens, cover all areas of domestic horticultural and agrobotanical branches in both education and research. In addition, the two units also played a major role in the training of foreign students within the framework of training abroad. At Gödöllő in 2013 the dean at the time Prof. Csaba Gyuricza and the founding head of the department Prof. Károly Penksza, established the Department of Botany as an independent department, thus making the role of botany even more intensive and efficient. The department takes an active part in education at all levels and also in doctoral training. It also plays a significant role in Hungarian and foreign language training.

Research

In research, the department cultivates almost all branches of botany. These are the research of the flora and vegetation of domestic and foreign areas, basic coenological research, coenological processing of horse pastures, seed bank investigations of sandy grasslands, coenological evaluation of agricultural areas and their border zones, analysis of the anatomical features of grass and especially Festuca species, taxonomic revision and coenotaxonomic clarification, problematic grass species and general taxonomic study, vegetation mapping, habitat mapping, research of the flora and vegetation of aquatic plants, weed studies, soil-plant relationship studies, applied coenological and foraging studies, examination of the vegetation of Kun Burial mounds, polarotaxis studies, landscape ecology research for nature conservation purposes. Forestry, dendrology, and plant organization research also add color to the repository, and mycological research is also very prominent.

Selected publications of the Department of Botany

• Biurrun et al. 2021 Benchmarking plant diversity of Palaearctic grasslands and other open habitats JOURNAL OF VEGETATION SCIENCE; Q1; 32 : 4 Paper: e13050
• Járdi et al 2021 Habitat Mosaics of Sand Steppes and Forest-Steppes in the Ipoly Valley in Hungary FORESTS; Q1; 12 : 2 Paper: 135 , 13 p.
• Penksza et al 2021 Do Sandy Grasslands along the Danube in the Carpathian Basin Preserve the Memory of Forest-Steppes? FORESTS; Q1; 12:2 p.m. 114
• Buyck et al 2021 Fungal Biodiversity Profiles 101–110. CRYPTOGAMIE, MYCOLOGY; Q1;42(5): 63–89. https://doi.org/10.5252/cryptogamie-mycologie2021v42a5
• Höhn, M., Avdagic, A.; Bielak, K., Bosela, M., Coll, L., Dinca, L., Giammarchi, F., Ibrahimspahic, A., Mataruga, M., Pach, M., Uhn, E., Zlatanov, T., Cseke, K., Kovács, Zs., Palla, B., Ladanyi, M., Heinze, B. (2021): Local characteristics of the standing genetic diversity of European beech with high within-region differentiation at the eastern part of the range. CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FOREST RESEARCH-REVUE CANADIENNE DE RECHERCHE FORESTIER on-line, https://doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2020-0413 Q1
• Major, E.I., Höhn, M., Avanzi, C., Fady, B., Heer, K., Opgenoorth, L., Piotti, A., Popescu, F., Postolache, D., Vendramin, G.G., Csillery K (2021): Fine‐scale spatial genetic structure across the species range reflects recent colonization of high elevation habitats in silver fir (Abies alba Mill.). MOLECULAR ECOLOGY. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.16107 Q1
• Palla, B., Ladányi, M., Cseke, K., Buczkó, K., Höhn, M. (2021): Wood Anatomical Traits Reveal Different Structure of Peat Bog and Lowland Populations of Pinus sylvestris L. in the Carpathian Region. FORESTS 12 : 4 https://doi.org/10.3390/f12040494 Q1
• Willner, W., Moser, D., Plenk, K., Aćić, S., Demina, O.N., Höhn, M., Kuzemko, A., Roleček, J., Vassilev, K., Vynokurov, D., Kropf , M. (2021): Long-term continuity of steppe grasslands in eastern Central Europe: Evidence from species distribution patterns and chloroplast haplotypes. Journal of Biogeography https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14269 Q1