PTERIDOŠKOLA
Pteridoškola is an educational and popularization project of the Botany Section with the aim of introducing all interested students to ferns as an important evolutionary lineage in the plant world. The project was imagined as a continuation of the already held projet – Brioškola, which dealt with mosses, and began to be developed immediately after the previously mentioned project was successfully implemented. Pteridoškola was held from, March 3 to 9, 2025. The project was attended by about forty registered students from five different faculties of the University of Zagreb, and in addition to the registered students, most of the lectures were attended by fifteen participants from the general public, ranging from students to university professors.
It all started with lectures, and the first, and also the introductory lecture “What are ferns and what is among them?” was given by prof. dr. dc. Antun Alegro. He was followed by prof. dr. sc. Vladimir Hršak with his lecture entitled “Development and distribution of related groups of ferns through the geological past”. An interesting and interactive lecture “Diversity of ferns: a walk through the historical collections of the Botanical Garden of the Faculty of Natural Sciences” was given by dr. sc. Sanja Kovačić, which presented numerous species that can be found in the green oasis of Zagreb. The last lecture, which highlighted numerous interesting species of our flora, “Overview of the diversity of ferns in Croatia”, was given by dr. sc. Vedran Šegota. The weekend was dedicated to a visit to the largest and oldest Croatian herbarium collection, Herbarium Croaticum, with the guidance of the curator dr. sc. Nina Vuković. The entire project was rounded off with a field trip to the Medvednica Nature Park led by dr. sc. Anja Rimac and dr. sc. Vedran Šegota. Of the species mentioned in the lectures, the participants were able to get acquainted with several of them in the field: Asplenium ruta-muraria L. (wall-rue), Asplenium scolopendrium L. (hart’s-tongue fern), Asplenium trichomanes L. (maidenhair spleenwort), Athyrium filix-femina (L.) Roth. (common lady-fern), Polypodium vulgare L. (common polypody) and Pteridium aquilinum (L.) Kuhn (bracken fern).
Finally, we would like to thank everyone, firstly all the lecturers without whom this project would not have been possible, and especially dr. sc. Vedran Šegota and dr. sc. Anja Rimac, the section mentors, who provided great support for this project. We would like to thank all the participants, who delighted us with their enthusiasm. We also owe thanks to the company Oikon d.o.o. for financial support. We would like to thank Row Spirit by Martin Sinković and Pago Croatia for the food and drinks. We would also like to thank the Croatian Botanical Society, the Botanical Garden of the Faculty of Science and the Herbarium Croaticum herbarium collection for their cooperation on the project. We would like to thank the BioFoto section for the excellent photographs and our dearest Sara Fajgl for her help in creating the visual identity.
project leaders: Antonio Eršegović i David Grabovac
Project logo (made by Sara Fajgl)
Partners and donators:
