László Szemere

László Szemere competed in four rifle events at the 1906 Athina Olympics, but he was much better known as a scientist whose research was in both ornithology and fungi. He studied at the Budapest University of Science, and qualified as a lawyer, and then worked in administration at the Madartani Institute. From 1924-38 he moved to the Experimental Department of the Ministry of Agriculture, and from 1938-47 was a member of the Department of Plant Physiology and Medicine.

His bird and plant knowledge was mostly self-taught and he started studying birds of prey, but later turned to mycology. In his later years he focused exclusively on fungi. He completed his book on the underground mushrooms of the Carpathian Basin, classifying 446 large mushrooms. This was his magnum opus and made his name known world-wide in the field of mycology.