Savulescu, Traian

Born Feb. 2, 1889, in Rîmnicu-Sārat; died Mar. 29, 1963, in Bucharest. Rumanian botanist and phytopathologist; public figure and government official. Academician of the Rumanian Academy (1938; corresponding member, 1934; general secretary, 1939; president, 1948; honorary president, 1960). Hero of Socialist Labor of the Socialist Republic of Rumania. Member of the Communist Party of Rumania from 1947.

In 1912, Săvulescu graduated from the University of Bucharest. He was a professor at the Higher Agricultural School in Bucharest in 1919 and at the University of Bucharest in 1948. In the latter year he also served as the director of the Institute of Agronomic Research. Between 1946 and 1948, Săvulescu held the posts of deputy minister of agriculture, minister of agriculture, and vice-chairman of the Council of Ministers.

The founder of the Rumanian school of mycologists and phytopathologists, Săvulescu organized phytopathological services in Rumania. His principal works dealt with the mycoflora of Rumania, diseases of cultivated crops, geobotany, and the systematics of angiosperms. He was the compiler and editor of the multi-volume Flora of Rumania (from 1952).

Săvulescu was made a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1958.