Wladyslaw Szafer

Born July 23, 1886, in Sosnowiec; died Nov. 16,1970, in Kraków. Polish botanist and public figure. Member of the Polish Academy of Learning in Kraków from 1920 and of the Polish Academy of Sciences from 1952 (vice-president from 1957 to 1961).

Szafer studied at the universities of Vienna and Lwów (L’vov). He was a professor at the University of Kraków and became director of the Botanical Garden in 1917. During the fascist occupation he was the rector of an underground university. Szafer was the organizer and first director of the Institute of Botany of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1951–63) and of the academy’s Institute of Nature Conservation (1951–60). He was chairman of the State Council on Nature Conservation from 1919 to 1949.

Szafer’s main works were on the systematics and ecology of vascular plants, botanical geography, geobotany, paleobotany, and conservation. He was the organizer and editor of Flora of Poland (vols. 1–9, 1919–60), Vegetation of Poland (vols. 1–2, 1959), and Nature and Resource Conservation (vols. 1–2, 1965). He was the author of Memoirs of a Naturalist (1973).

Szafer received the State Prize of the Polish People’s Republic in 1949. He was a member of many foreign academies of sciences.