Review article
Alongside the 200th Anniversary of the Birth of dr. Josip Pančić (1914 – 1888)
Ivan Barbarić
Abstract
2014 sees the 200th anniversary of the birth of dr. Josip Pančić, the famous botanist, doctor and professor of the natural sciences. He was born on 5th April 1814 in the Croatian Littoral, in the town of Bribir, in the village of Ugrini, and died on 25th February 1888 in Belgrade. He finished primary school in Gospić, college in Rijeka, and medical faculty in Budapest in 1842. He worked as a doctor in Budapest, then in Banat and in Serbia, in the town of Jagodina where he married and started a family. In 1853 he went to Belgrade to be a full professor in Licej (later: Velika škola) where he taught natural sciences (botany, zoology, geology, mineralogy and agronomy). Until the end of his life he was involved in scientificinvestigative and teachingpedagogic work. He established the Botanical Garden in Belgrade (in 1874) and he was its first director, and in 1887 he was appointed the first president of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU). During his 42 years of work Pančić collected and described almost of the plants that grow in Serbia. He published in various magazines at home and abroad. In the Viennese magazine Verhandlung der kaiserlichkȍniglichen zoologisch botanischen Gesellschaft he published the article Die Flore der Serpentinberge in Mittel Serbien (1859). In Glasnik Društva srpske slovesnosti (The Bulletin of the Society of Serbian Letters) Pančić published the articles: Živi pesak u Srbiji i bilje što na njemu raste (Quicksand in Serbia and the plants that grow on it) (Arena mobilis in Serbia eiusque flora) (1863) and Ribe u Srbiji (Fish in Serbia) (1860). In collaboration with the famous Italian botanist Robert Visiani in Venice he published the book Plantae Serbicae rariores aut novae in three parts (1862 – 1870). He published the results of his research in a series of books: Flora u okolici Beograda (Flora of the surroundings of Belgrade) (1864) a sixth edition was published in 1892, Ptice u Srbiji (Birds of Serbia) (1867), Kopaonik i njegovo podgorje (Kopaonik and its piedmont areas) (1869), Šumsko drveće i šiblje (Forest trees and shrubs) (1871), Flora Kneževine Srbije (Flora of the Principality of Serbia) (1874), Flora Crne Gore (Flora of Montenegro) (1875) in Latin, Građa za floru Kneževine Bugarske (Material for the flora of the Principality of Bulgaria) (1883), Ortoptere u Srbiji (Orthopters in Serbia) (1883), Ribarstvo u Srbiji (Fishing in Serbia) (1886). From 42 of Pančić’s works 26 of them are directly related to the floristics and systematics (taxonomy) of plants. Pančić’s greatest discovery is the endemicrelic species Pančić’s Spruce (Pinus omo rika Pančić). He searched for this plant for almost 20 years and he found several of the spruce trees in 1877 on the Tara mountain (in Serbia). He published this discovery in 1887. In his most significant work Flora Kneževine Srbije (The Flora of the Principality of Serbia), he described 2,074 species, of which, 102 plant species and numerous new plant variants and forms were new species to science. In Dodatak flori Kneževine Srbije (An ppendix to the Flora of the Principality of Serbia) he described a further 308 species. There are only a small number of scientists in Europe who have discovered such a large number of new and previously unknown plants.
Keywords
Josip Pančić; Bribir; botanist; flora; spruce; scientist; Kopaonik
Hrčak ID:
147513
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2014.
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