Preslia: Botanical Research in Czechoslovakia

Abstract

THE Czechoslovak Botanical Society has just published a comprehensive issue (vols. 22 and 23, pp. 248) of its proceedings, Preslia, for the years 1943-47. The periodical, named after the brothers J. S. and K. B. Presl, who flourished in the first half of the last century, had been an annual publication for some time before the War, but nevertheless served as a repository for the results of botanical research in Czechoslovakia. The Society now has an active membership of more than two hundred, besides that of some twenty-nine (pre-war, thirty-seven) affiliated societies and naturalists' clubs. During the period under review it was mainly through these that botanists were able to continue working and publishing. The current issue of Preslia lists these contributions for the years 1939 to 1947 as well as describing (in English and Czech) the recent history of some of the affiliated institutions. Some institutes are still not in working order. Dr. I. Klašteršký is held up with his work on the genus Rosa ; Prof. J. Peklo lacks facilities for his phytopathological studies, and Prof. K. Domin cannot obtain the foreign literature he needs for comparative purposes. So far as botany is concerned, Slovakia appears to have suffered less than Bohemia, though Prof. B. Nemec states that the Bratislava University Institute for Plant Physiology lacks microscopes and other equipment, and is without a proper library. A note in Preslia> refers to the failure of the Botanical Society to obtain a grant from Unesco through the Association Internationale des Microbiologistes, and this is likely to delay further publication. In 1938 a group of botanists founded a journal, Studia Botanica Cechoslovaka. It survived until 1943, and hope is now expressed that it will resume publication under the editorship of Prof. S. Prát and Dr. I. Klašteršký.