Herbarium of Botanical Garden of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice – a part of the botanical history of the region of eastern Slovakia

Abstract

In 1884, Seed Station (Vetőmagvizsgáló Állomás) as a state institution of Hungary was established in Košice. On its ground probably the second institutional herbarium in this region was established. It gathered collections of wild and introduced plants from the vicinity of Košice and eastern Slovakia (Carpathian and Pannonian bioregions), including exsiccates of the collectors like A. Degen, L. de Thaisz and later M. Deyl. This herbarium later got into the administration of the Košice branch of the Central Agricultural Inspection and Testing Institute (Ústřední kontrolní a zkušební ústav zemědělský, ÚKZUZ) with the main office in Prague. In 1950, the Botanical Garden of the University of Agricultural and Forest Engineering (Vysoká škola poľnohospodárskeho a lesníckeho inžinierstva, VŠPLI) was established in Košice. Plant documentation material from the region of eastern Slovakia began to be concentrated there and another institutional herbarium, which was later taken over by the Slovak Academy of Sciences, was established. In 1960, the Botanical Garden in Košice was taken over by the Pedagogical Institute (Pedagogický inštitút), and the rather large herbarium was then reduced to 3,415 herbarium specimens. In the years 1958-1960, however, it was enriched by 9,539 herbarium specimens of the Košice branch of ÚKZUZ, which passed the herbarium from the years 1897 – 1943 to the botanical garden. In 1964, the botanical garden became a part of the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University (UPJŠ). At that time, the herbarium included 16,000 herbarium specimens of seed plants. For many years, the herbarium had only provisional rooms for its storage. In the early 1990s, a part of the building of the Botanical Garden was rebuilt and herbarium depositary and study room were formed. Later an electronic database has been created and in recent years the herbarium specimens have also been digitized. In September 2020 the herbarium included about 55,000 specimens, of which more than 34,500 were registered in local database and some of them (more than 9,000) are digitized.