Slovakia

The tradition of higher education in Košice (Slovakia) begins with the foundation of Academia Cassoviensis by Bishop Benedict Kisdy as early as in 1657. A Golden Bull issued by the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I has granted this university similar privileges to those enjoyed by universities in Vienna, Prague and other European cities. The university in various forms, first as a Royal Academy and later as a Law Academy, lasted until 1921. The University in Košice in its modern form was established in 1959 as the second university in Slovakia. Its foundation was an important contribution to the development of the educational and research activities in the second largest Slovak city. The University is named after an outstanding personality of Slovak history, Pavol Jozef Šafárik (1795 – 1861), who was a scientist, poet, linguist, ethnographer, archaeologist, and educator. The current structure of P. J. Šafárik University includes five faculties – Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Public Administration and Faculty of Arts. At our University more than 7500 students are studying.

The Faculty of Science is a remarkable institution of higher education and research, offering education in different branches of science (biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, computer science, geography, and ecology), which may be studied either as single (one-subject) or joint (two-subject) degree programmes. Due to its fruitful results in research, mirrored in publications in renowned scientific journals and presented at important international conferences, and also due to the intensive international collaboration and participation in international projects, the faculty has become a recognized academic institution not only in Slovakia but also in Europe and other parts of the world. Among priority tasks of the faculty in science and research are the support of grant projects, the strengthening of the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research and further deepening of international collaboration, particularly by joining diverse existing networks of projects and programmes both in fundamental and applied research and by cooperating with industry.

The Botanical Garden in Košice (BG) was established on May 5, 1950 as the Botanical Institute of the University of Agricultural and Forest Engineering. Later it belonged to the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the Pedagogical Institute, until it became a part of Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice (UPJŠ) in 1964. From its beginning it has played a role of a scientific and pedagogical institution. A lot of plants were planted in the originally almost bare area, greenhouses were built, which were open on October 14, 1958. At that time, they belonged among the largest ones in Central Europe. At present, Botanical Garden is a protected area with a total of 30 ha, greenhouses on an area of 3200 m2 and more than 4000 species, subspecies, and cultivars of plants. It is thus the largest botanical garden in Slovakia with the richest collection of cacti and cycads in Slovakia, as well as with various unique plant species from around the world. The main scope of the activities of the BG is the scientific research aimed at the concentrating and studying of the gene pool of endangered and common species.

Herbarium of the Botanical garden was established in 1884 as a part of Seed Station of the Royal Hungarian Seed Inspection Institute in Budapest and Košice. It gathered collections of wild plants from the vicinity of Košice and eastern Slovakia, including exsiccates of the collectors like Degen, Thaisz and later Deyl. In 1964, Botanical garden (established in 1950) with herbarium became a part of the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. In September 2020 the herbarium included about 55,000 specimens, of which more than 35,600 were registered in local database and some of them (more than 9,000) are digitized. From the point of view of geographical provenance, the herbarium collection in Košice focuses on Central and Eastern Europe. These collections are further completed by the specimens from all over Europe, and by smaller number of specimens from the region of Southwest and Central Asia and Antarctica. Collections of lichens from Antarctica (collector M. Bačkor) and from the Alps (collector M. Marcinčinová) can be considered special collections, as well as the collections of higher plants – the exsicates of Alchemilla from the collector P. Frost-Olsen from Denmark, the Mediterranean collection of the collector M. Nydegger and the specimens from Scotland from P. Mártonfi. In the herbarium there are specimens from a total of about 400 collectors. From this point of view, the group of first five collectors with at least 1,000 specimens had consisted of V. Mikoláš (more than 14,000 specimens), then A. Vojtuň, M. Maloch, P. Mártonfi and J. Rigler. 

Comenius University in Bratislava is a modern European university which in 2019 celebrated its 100th anniversary. With its thirteen faculties, it offers the widest selection of study programmes (over 800) at three levels, and several of these study programmes are the only ones of their kind offered in Slovakia. There is a wide range of areas of human knowledge to choose from when studying, be it in medicine, the humanities and social sciences, the natural sciences, mathematics, theology, and much more. Comenius University is a research institution that runs hundreds of domestic and international research projects. Every year Comenius University sends the highest number of students abroad out of all Slovak universities, and it receives the most international students, including from such countries as Germany, Norway, Greece, Iran, Austria, and Iceland.
The herbarium collection of the Department of Botany of the Comenius University in Bratislava (SLO), the second biggest herbarium in Slovakia, was founded at the same time as the Botanical Institute of the University, in 1940. It comprises at present 156 000 specimens of higher plants mainly from Slovakia, 12 000 bryophytes, 5 000 lichens, and 2 000 fungi from the same region. The most important historical collections are the herbaria of Izabela Textorisová (1866-1949) and Jozef Scheffer (1903-1949).

Izabela Textorisová is considered as the first Slovak lady botanist. Her herbarium in SLO consists of 3,707 sheets collected mainly by herself in the region of the Veľká Fatra Mts. and Malá Fatra Mts. A quarter of her herbarium was acquired by exchange with well-known botanists such as K. Brančík, J.L. Holuby, J. Hulják, S. Jávorka, A. Kmeť, S. Trapl, V. Vraný, and J. Wagner. The unpublished work of Textorisová, «Turčianska flóra» (Flora of the Turiec Region), now kept in the Slovak National Library.

Jozef Scheffer, who worked as physician in the town of Topoľčany, collected together with K.H. Rechinger from Vienna, rich material containing about 3 000 specimens mainly from Slovakia (Flora Posoniensis, Flora Comitatus Nitriensis, Flora Carpatorum Occidentalum), Moldavia, the Romanian Carpathians, Transylvania and localities near the Albanian border. His herbarium, originally bought by the University Botanical Garden, was incorporated into the collections of SLO in 1962. The best represented genus in his collection is Rubus to which he paid great attention.

Among phanerogamic collections worth mentioning is rich material collected in the Podunajská and Východoslovenská nížina Lowlands and voucher specimens of the Karyological survey of the Slovak flora, all collected by famous Slovak botanist Jozef Májovský and his pupils and successors.

The main part of the bryological collection has been gathered by Vojtech Peciar and his pupils. The herbarium contains voucher specimens of Studia bryof loristica Slovaca, a series published in Acta Facultatis, Rerum Naturalium Universitatis Comenianae, series Botanica.