According to a book from 1888,
Observing plants and their growing places is the best way to get to know botanists.
A great help is also visiting botanical gardens and orchards and growing plants in pots.
I personally recommend visiting the Botanical Library.
Professor Władysław Schaffer, this institute would not exist without him, right?
Yes,
this is his idea,
his idea that these two institutes should work together.
Of course, this room is not used for scientific research.
No, we are now in the heart of the institute,
where we have been meeting for 65 years.
When you say the institute was established in 1953,
here, ladies and gentlemen, every week there are known botanical gardens,
where very interesting referendums are published.
I must tell you that we have no problems with the forum on these gardens,
because as you can see,
there are portraits around us that provide us with the audience,
among other things, on these gardens.
We have the opportunity to communicate not only in the fields of science,
but we also have the opportunity to use our material resources.
And such a material resource,
as you can see here,
are beautiful old prints that are in the possession of our library.
Because the library, I must tell you,
is also strange, it is common.
We have a common library,
we all use it.
And you will be able,
you will have the ability to see how old,
beautifully published,
age-old works are used for contemporary work and whether they are useful.
So I invite you to our institute.
Please.
Fantastic.
In that case, let's go.
The world is full of plants.
There are many hundreds of thousands of species.
In order to
work with these plants,
you have to somehow systematize the plants.
There were various ideas,
but as so far the best idea was
the work of Karol Linneusz.
For us, he is the type of person,
as I would say, in astronomy,
as Mikołaj Kopernik.
This is his original edition from 1753,
Species Plantarum, in which Karol Linneusz described how to systematize plants.
In Poland, the plantarum system was written by the priest Krzysztof Kluk,
the plant dictionary.
And as it is written here,
it is the under the
of Linneusz, these plants were described.
In this dictionary there are 1536 species of plants.
Today, in our country, there are described
that there are more or less 2200-2300 species of plants.
So he took a lot of species in his book Krzysztof Kluk.
We owe him the term flowering,
leaf tail, bud,
flower bottom.
Maybe he was not accepted only by one of the terms,
flower button,
which today simply means a bud.
Professor,
I see such a flash in your eye when you look at these books,
that I can assume that they are as close to you as family members.
but usually in a family it happens that someone is the most important.
Is any of these books the closest to you?
It is this beautiful 16th century green book by the name of Bok, or Tragus.
Firstly, a huge metaphysics of time,
because it is a publication of 1580,
so it is a book in which the
energy of readers,
researchers, accumulates in some way.
It is a huge metaphysics of this book.
But I also have personal memories associated with it.
When I was a young PhD student at the Institute of Botany,
when I came to Professor Jadwiga Diakowska,
who was the writer and director of the library,
when she had a good sense of humour,
she would open the library cabinet,
locked in a key,
and pull out old prints.
At the beginning, it was always this Hieronym Bok as a particularly valuable book,
a valuable Renaissance work.
Did it distinguish her due to her form, illustrations,
the year of publication?
Or were there other reasons?
Beautiful illustrations.
Please see, in some plants,
all the type scenes illustrating some
use of some species.
But not only beautiful prints.
Bok was one of the so-called fathers of German botany.
He not only commented on the ancient ones,
because at that time it was mainly done,
that is, Dioscorides or Theophrast,
but he also observed plants in nature.
And the funniest thing about this book is that,
as a solid researcher,
he decided to check the
authenticity of the legend about the papyrus flower.
We know that papyrus does not produce flowers,
it has been known about it since ancient times,
but he also knew from folk legends
that it appeared in the night of St.
John's Day.
So,
together with a group of friends,
they decided to keep this ritual.
And at midnight, they went to the Great Papyrus Plum,
they spread a white cloth there, and what happened?
They also helped the plant to drop the papyrus flower.
But it turned out that only the roots had fallen.
And hence the very reasonable idea,
as it was at that time,
that the roots are such seeds of papyrus.
Of course, it was not true,
but in any case,
it served in some sense for reproduction.
Professor,
I noticed some strange characters.
What are these people doing here?
This group of people is presented during the Holy Wine-taking.
It is clear that they have drunk a little wine,
because one of these people is already lying under the
wine tree.
He feels the effects of the wine-taking.
And the others?
One of the others is covering his eyes so as not to see it.
So it is a didactic effect, right?
Yes,
and this is due to the fact that the journalists wrote down many theories
and many customs related to plants.
In today's language,
they went out into the crowd and did oral surveys on the use of plants.
Something amazing.
And it is fascinating for us today that this ancient ethnobotanical knowledge
is documented here.
And we can analyze it today.
And then, to make it easier,
they would do something like a comic book,
right?
Yes, yes.
Well, to make it as didactic as possible.
Some of these scenes are quite controversial,
I would say.
Yes, quite drastic.
And here is the effect of consuming immature figs,
which act as a
high purifying agent.
After the first great work of Krzysztof Kluch,
who wrote down all species of plants in the Polish region,
we have to move on to two more researchers,
who also used the Linnausza system,
unfortunately with a similar name.
Why unfortunately?
Because both names are quite strange for us today,
because they are Lithuanian names,
Jundził.
And the work of Józef Józił is often attributed to Stanisław Bonifac Józił.
They worked in the same discipline,
they were professors of botany.
However, for us, botanists, the work of Józef Józił is much more important.
Not only because there are almost twice as many species of plants described there,
but also because there is documentation.
We have here described where these plants were selected,
when, what species it is.
These plants will soon be 200 years old.
200 years?
Such a dried plant can survive 200 years?
Yes, a dried plant can survive so long if it was kept in the right conditions.
And I think that both the owner of this greenhouse and his daughter Maria,
who handed over the greenhouses to Krakow,
to the Academy of Sciences,
they will be able to collect the plants after their father's death.
And then we, at this moment, very carefully store the collection and show it to a special guest.
And this is very nice.
Here,
both original greenhouses with notes are kept.
This greenhouse is very important because it contains about 2300 plants.
But here in this greenhouse,
there are not only collections of Józef Józił.
Here are also partially collections
of the predecessor of the same name,
but also one tree,
for example, of Aleksander Humboldt.
A few dozen trees from the expedition of James Cook.
Willibald Besser,
who was a professor of the Krzemieniecki High School,
also has a few of his trees here.
So it is a priceless collection and one of the few that has survived to the present day.
Professor,
can I close the door?
But of course, please.
I mean, no, no, because it's necessary here.
Oh, there's a trick here.
It's a simple construction,
otherwise I would drive.
And what do you keep in these thousands of barrels?
Are these your research results?
No, these are materials for which I conduct research,
i.e.
collected greenhouses, dried up greenhouses,
specifically moss.
This is the subject of my research.
And these are such sachets?
These are lids in which there are smaller lids in case of need,
and here is a greenhouse display that
will be examined.
If necessary,
you always have to return to such materials.
Here is a
nicer display, full of cans,
i.e.
with poragons,
which are such a equivalent of flowers.
And still with soil.
Well, it must be, because it grows on the ground, with the ground.
Professor,
are these
books that you have prepared also useful during your work?
They are not only useful,
but very useful and have a fundamental meaning.
Because this species was described for the first time in this work from 1826.
And to correctly interpret,
determine its synonyms,
in places where it was first found and described,
here is its first description,
the first observation by man.
And how do you write such a book?
A scientist goes to the forest,
walks on the trees,
looks at the bushes?
Collecting moss or other plants is just such a fieldwork.
You go, you collect.
Now to find a new moss in Europe for science is difficult.
However,
it is not impossible and...
Did you manage to do it?
...I am not bragging,
I just managed to describe 10 new species for Europe.
This huge book, as the only one among those you have prepared,
has a Polish name.
Zielnik.
Yes, Zielnik by Szymon Syreński,
or Sireniusz.
A very famous work.
He was a professor at the University of Krakow,
very well educated, among others at the University of Padwa.
And this is?
A book written entirely in Polish.
Yes, a book written entirely in Polish, beautiful Polish.
These are information about plants that appear in
Poland and Europe,
but used in Poland.
For example, the first information about sunflower.
And the Polish description of plants is his authorship.
And it is at the source of our botany.
What great times these must have been.
So many things to discover.
Would you not like to go back to that age?
Yes and no.
Because I think that then,
if I wanted to be a woman,
I would have to deal with science.
I would have to show a huge heart of spirit and some kind of adventurousness.
Just like in the literature of Georges Saint,
who dressed in men's clothes to be able to walk freely.
That's what I wanted to say.
That maybe you would have to change clothes too.
Exactly.
A few million years ago,
this is what the area of the central Polish power plant in Bełchatów looked like.
And we know this because about a year ago,
Grzesiek found such a strange stone in Bełchatów.
Is it really a stone?
No, it is a mineralized wood.
It is a stone-cast wood.
It is very heavy.
I confirm.
It also rots your hands.
Is this what we burn in the ovens?
Or what we should not burn in the ovens?
No, it is not suitable for burning in the ovens.
It is very suitable for scientific research.
In the ovens we can burn something else.
And here we have an example of something else.
This is another wood.
It is the same age.
It is from the same place.
But it is not cast-ironized.
It is not stone-cast.
Okay, but we were supposed to talk about books.
What did you prepare for us?
Here I prepared old prints.
Old prints about fossilized plants.
Old prints, which are authored by Poles.
Here is the tract of Historia Naturalis,
a tract in Latin,
authored by Father Gabriel Żączyński, a Jesuit.
This tract was created in 1721.
And please note that it starts with Fossilibus.
This tract was a textbook used in Jesuit schools and in the schools of the Piarist Order in the 18th century.
In the 18th century,
Jesuits and Piarists were learning about stone-cast wood?
Yes, they were learning about stone-cast wood.
What's more,
the views presented both by Father Żączyński and in the books of Father Kluk,
which are also books from the 18th century,
in these books the views on the origin of fossilized plants were similar to those of modern times.
What was not necessarily clear in those times,
even in the 18th century,
many authors believed that fossilized plants are,
for example, the emanation of stars,
natural fibers or plants that creaked in the rocks but could not fully develop.
In the early days,
but also in the 19th century and a little later,
a different type of greenery was used,
i.e.
so-called painted greenery.
The artist painted plants here as a whole,
i.e.
as needed,
to preserve both the roots,
the stems,
the seeds and various other parts of plants that are needed to determine the systematic affiliation of plants.
These greeneries were also,
and looked like this,
they were simply not painted, but painted.
We have a lot of such greeneries of this type.
And now we leave these oldest greeneries and move on to something younger, right?
Yes, because this is an album from the first half of the 19th century, Planta Medicinalis.
Planta Medicinalis, i.e.
medicinal plants.
But please note how high the level of coloring of these individual species is.
These illustrations are beautiful,
fantastically done at a high level.
And such a book could be praised before friends?
It's nice when it's on the shelf somewhere in the living room,
let's say.
Yes, there is a special type of publication that
began to be published in the 17th century,
the so-called Florilegia.
These were just the pictures of plants painted by outstanding artists,
so that the lord or the lady of the house could boast that he had such wonderful plants.
Prestige, right?
Yes.
Do you publish such albums?
We publish them only in rich countries or in countries that understand the meaning of natural sciences.
There are special publishing series of reprints of various sizes.
For example, from such a large greenery,
a pocket form is published and it is sold as a gadget in a botanical garden.
A very good idea.
The book is published in the 18th century and is a modern laboratory.
But such a view does not surprise anyone in this institute.
You use such old books,
although you have such equipment.
Each botanist or mycologist should reach the first,
most complete description of a given species.
And that's what these old books are for.
We have a duty,
not only that it is some kind of fantasy,
but it is a duty.
Each of us must reach the oldest description and only then can we describe the species properly.
Do you also breed some organisms here in the laboratory?
Yes, these are the mushrooms that are isolated from the apartments in Krakow, from various apartments.
What lives in the apartment in Krakow can be seen here.
Of course, all the infectious diseases that are here, this Rhodotorula too,
because it lives in the nails.
And not only in the soil,
but also in the nails.
Professor,
I'm afraid to be afraid.
How are the greenhouses stored today?
Today we have a very modern system of so-called compact greenhouses,
which give us much more space than normal, standard storage,
i.e.
on any other shelves.
Everyone can look inside these materials,
as long as they maintain certain conditions for watching such plants.
We put it this way,
of course, trying to open this card,
trying not to damage the plant.
Now, if we want to move this plant and look at some other shelf,
because we have already looked at it before,
we have to put
this cardboard and move it in a position like this.
In a safe place.
Yes, in a safe place next to it.
And then we can start looking further.
And every time such a cardboard must be put,
because dry plants are incredibly sensitive to just breaking.
And we do this with every greenhouse we deal with.
Every time we put it on this cardboard.
You were talking about pocket reprints sold in botanical gardens.
But this is definitely not such a pocketbook,
right?
It's hard to call this huge pocketbook an album.
This is an album of Australian-type plants,
Banksia.
Joseph Banks, an 18th and 19th century botanist
associated with the botanical garden in Kew,
who participated in the first Kukal expedition,
where Australia was explored,
among other things,
and many new species were collected there.
This is not an original, but a reprint.
The originals of these wonderful paintings are stored in the Botanical Garden Museum in Kew.
Our library received numbered copies as gifts.
Did you get them for any merit?
I mean, for the proof that this library exists here,
is a very important botanical library in this part of Europe.
SעŁOMIDŁO