The Connection Between One’s Own Work and the Local Environment

January 14, 2025

While plant materials are drying in the presses, I browse through books with the aim of finding a connection between my own work and the environment in which I move. In the process, I come across interesting information. The regions of Croatia, in terms of botanical value, have become a floristic mecca for numerous scientists.

The Connection Between One’s Own Work and the Local Environment. Herbarij studio

Among them stands out Roberto Visiani (1800–1878), a Croatian botanist of Italian descent who approached the study of Dalmatian flora with great thoroughness. Moreover, he collaborated with numerous local botanists, amateur botanists, and collectors, and the result of this collaboration was his monumental work Flora Dalmatica, which represents an important contribution to European botany. Visiani’s extensive herbarium is today housed alongside other collections at the Istituto di Botanica e Fisiologia Vegetale at the University of Padua

Another contributor to botany was Domenico Pappafava (born 1815 in Zadar). Although professionally a lawyer, his interest in botany led him to amass a collection, which, according to Špiro Brusina, included twenty thousand plant species. Pappafava’s herbarium is considered the richest Dalmatian herbarium. It contains plant materials collected from various parts of the world in collaboration with distinguished foreign botanists. Despite historical and wartime upheavals (the bombing of Zadar during World War II) and the ravages of time, the herbarium has been partially preserved.

It is also interesting that Pappafava combined botany and art, as alongside the herbarium there is a collection of copperplate engravings that he commissioned (Iconografia botanica). It is also worth mentioning, beyond his botanical contributions, his significance for the development of sericulture. Witnesses of that time are the mulberry trees, which, although no longer used for silk production here, still provide thick shade in the summer. So, whenever you see a mulberry tree, wherever you are, think of the precious and prestigious silk that few can resist, rightly called the queen of fibers. Even more fascinating is that these famous threads are produced by astonishing creatures: tiny silkworm caterpillars, which, unknowingly, continue to dictate the pace for humankind.