Chronological overview of the establishment of the genus Campanula L. collection in BEOU 

Context in source publication

Context 1

... e Herbarium of the University of Belgrade, as a special unit of the Institute of Botany and Botanical Garden “Jevremovac” of the Faculty of Biology, is one of the most signifi cant and the richest herbarium collections not only in Serbia but in the whole of SE Europe. Th e Herbarium was established in 1860 when a famous Serbian botanist Josif Pančić gave his collection (80 bunches of dried plants from Banat and Srem) to the “Great School” in Belgrade, currently University of Belgrade. Aft er Pančić, who established the Herbarium, Ž. Jurišić, Đ. Ilić, Đ. Ničić, S. Pelivanović, N. Košanin, Th . Soška, L. Adamović, V. Blečić, I. Rudski, P. Černjavski, B. Tatić, M.M. Janković, V. Stevanović, J. Blaženčić, M. Niketić and many other botanists from that time until today have contributed to its enrichment. During its 150 year-long history, the fate of the Herbarium University of Belgrade had at times been very uncertain, and in some periods completely unclear. Namely, it is known that shortly before Pančić’s death in 1888 this herbarium collection was stored in the Botanical Cabinet of the Great School in Belgrade. Th e collection was then under the care of Ž. Jurišić, Pančić’s student and follower. Ten years aft er Pančić’s death, herbarium bunches were transferred from Th e Great School to the Botanical Garden “Jevremovac”, where the Herbarium is housed today ( Fig. 1). J. Bornmuller (1887-1889) and O. Bierbach (1890-1903) also worked together with Jurišić on the maintenance and enrichment of the Herbarium. Between 1902 and 1906, the head of the Herbarium was professor L. Adamović. Th ere is some written evidence for this period of Herbarium management revealing that Adamović was charged with handing over herbarium specimens to Herbariums in Vienna, Pest, Berlin, and even to some private owners. When professor N. Košanin became the director of the Botanical Garden in 1906, the work on enrichment and maintenance of the herbarium collections started again. A new extension to the administration building was turned into the Herbarium rooms, equipped with adequate conditions for preserving the collections. Košanin had been travelling and collecting plant material intensively, restocking Pančić’s collection which was impoverished by the previous manager. Since 1914, Košanin and his companion T. Soška, a gardener of the Botanical Garden and a great fl oristic expert, collected rich plant material during their fi eld surveys, mainly from Macedonia. During the First World War, the Herbarium was shelled. At the order of the civil governor of Serbia in 1916 K. Maly, the curator of the Herbarium in Sarajevo, who as a sergeant at that time was in Belgrade, sent four collections each consisting of 500 to 1000 specimens of herbarized plants to the Institute of Botany and Botanical Garden of the University in Vienna, Natural History Museum in Budapest, Zemaljski muzej now National Museum in Sarajevo and Botanical Institute in Zagreb. Aft er the war, thanks to the intense engagement of professor Nedeljko Košanin and the Directorate of Spoils of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, collections from Vienna, Sarajevo and Zagreb were returned. In 1920, as revealed by available records which are kept on fi le at the Institute of Botany in Belgrade, professor R. Wettstein himself, the then director of the Institute of Botany of the University in Vienna, prepared and sent to Belgrade one series of plants that had reached Vienna from Belgrade during the war. In addition, to compensate for those specimens that could not be returned, professor Wettstein sent an additional collection consisting of 550 plants. According to data from the fi le, in 1919 K. Maly also sent a collection of 3390 plants to Belgrade. Among them there were 1241 plants that were transferred from Belgrade to Sarajevo during the war, as well as another 2149 plants that had been collected mainly from the western Balkans, beyond the territory of Serbia. Furthermore, according to the available information, professor V. Vouk, the then director of the Botanical Institute in Zagreb, returned to Belgrade most of the plants (about 600 specimens) that during the war had been transferred to Zagreb. Only the fate of herbarium material that had been transferred to Budapest has still not been clarifi ed. In correspondence between the Directorate of Spoils of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the Natural History Museum in Budapest there is a document dated April 7th, 1920 in which T. Filarsky, the then director of the Botanical Department of the Natural History Museum in Budapest, admits that in 1916 he has received a collection of 987 species that had been sent from the Belgrade Botanical Garden. In the same letter Filarsky obligated that the Botanical Department of the Museum in Budapest would make an appropriate plant collection that he would return to Belgrade. At the end of that year, N. Košanin, in his report about the state and needs of the Botanical Garden and Institute of Belgrade University, which he sent to the minister of education on October 16th 1920, included a statement that herbarium collections that were transferred to Vienna and Sarajevo had been returned, and that he expects that those that were transferred to Zagreb and Budapest would soon be returned. Th e collection from Zagreb was returned, whereas no tracks about the collection from Budapest can be found. Furthermore, in his book “Th e Hundredth Anniversary of the Botanical Garden Jevremovac”, professor B. Tatić, a long-standing head of the Institute of Botany and Botanical Garden of Belgrade University, explicitly stated that only the herbarium collection from Budapest had not been returned (Tatić 1996). During the period from Košanin’s death (1934) to Soška’s (1948) the herbarium was completely uncared- for and neglected. Not only was no new material brought in, but no care was paid to the preservation of the collection. Th e situation changed in the 1970s following the appointment of V. Stevanović, who restarted handling, sorting, classifying, treating, and refi lling the existing herbarium collection. At his initiative, in 1991 S. Vukojičić was elected the new curator of the Herbarium. She has been taking care of the preservation of existing collections, as well as adding to them and exchanging herbarium material with related institutions in Europe and worldwide. Today, 150 years aft er its establishment, the Belgrade University Herbarium is registered under code BEOU in the world centre in New York (Holmgren et al. 1990) and contains over 180000 specimens of vascular plants, mosses and algae. Herbarium BEOU is organized into the following collections: Herbarium Pancicianum which, from historical, cultural and scientifi c points of view, is the most signifi cant collection of plants that was collected in the 19th century by Josif Pančić. Herbarium Generale , the richest plant collection gathered not only in the Balkan Peninsula, but throughout the whole world; most of the herbarium material derives from the 19th and the fi rst half of the 20th century. More recent collections (the second half of the 20th century until the present time): Specimens of some genera that have been the subject of almost continual taxonomic and chorologic studies since the mid 19th century are good indicators of more recent enrichment of the BEOU collection. Th us, using data from analyses of the collection of the genus Campanula L., which numbers 2130 specimens collected or exchanged in Serbia and other Balkan and European countries in the period from 1860 to 2010, and which integrates collections of Herbarium Pancicianum , Herbarium Generale and Collection of the Department of Plant Ecology and Geography , Gudelj (2007) established that more than 200 legators have participated in the formation of the Belgrade University Herbarium. Th e greatest number of exsiccates integrated in this collection were gathered by V. Stevanović, D. Lakušić, J. Pančić, S. Jovanović, N. Košanin, M. Niketić, Th . Soška, G. Tomović, I. Rudski, M. M. Janković, J. Hruby, S. Vukojičić, J. Petrović, L. Rajevski, G. Džukić, in the order indicated. Chronology of establishing the collection of genus Campanula in BEOU mostly parallels the historical development of fl oristic investigations in Serbia (Fig. 2). Th erefore, the whole period might be divided into three prosperous periods, distinguished by J. Pančić and collaborators (1870-1890), N. Košanin and Th . Soška (1920-1930) and V. Stevanović and his collaborators (1990-2010). Th ree additional periods of decline are clearly distinct. Th e fi rst relates to the period before the Balkan Wars and the First World War (1890-1910), the second to the period before the Second World War (1930-1940), and the third to the general decline in activities regarding work in the Herbarium aft er the II World War (1950-1970). In geographical respect, most of the collection (72%) is made up of plants gathered in the territory of Serbia (45%), Montenegro (18%) and Macedonia (9%). A considerable number of exemplars originate from Greece (3%), Croatia (3%) and Bulgaria (2%), and quite a number of specimens derive from Italy and Spain. Interestingly, 8% of plants in the collection do not have a precisely established geographical origin. Because of its botanical signifi cance, i.e. its complex, unsolved taxonomy in the Balkan Peninsula, which results from intra-specifi c variability, as well as insuffi ciently clarifi ed chorology, species of the genus Campanula have oft en been collected by botanists. Moreover, because of the attractiveness of this genus, its plants have been picked by collectors and amateurs. Accordingly, the number of exsiccates of this genus taxa is very high and generally illustrates the mode of formation of the whole collection of the Belgrade University ...