In: Phyton 60, Fasc. (2020): S. 27-40 DOI: 10.12905/0380.phyton60-2020-0027; Published online on 25 November 2020

Fran Kušan and the first university botanical garden of medicinal and poisonous plants in Southeast Europe

Suzana Inic & Dario Kremer

with 10 figures

Key words: Fran Kušan, Croatian botanist, botanical garden, medicinal and poisonous plants, history of botany in Croatia.

Summary
Inic S & Kremer D. 2020. Fran Kušan and the first university botanical garden of medicinal and poisonous plants in Southeast Europe. – Phyton (Horn, Austria) 60: 27–40, with 10 figures.
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the role of Fran Kušan (Vucja Luka, 1902 – Zagreb, 1972), a Croatian botanist and university professor of pharmaceutical botany, in the establishment of three botanical gardens, especially the Botanical Garden of Medicinal and Poisonous Plants of the University of Zagreb, Croatia. This was the first special¬ized pharmaceutical botanical garden for the cultivation of medicinal and poisonous plants in Southeast Europe. The garden was organized and founded by Fran Kušan in 1946 at the Faculty of Pharmacy (today the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry), University of Zagreb, and since 1969 it has been statutorily protected as a monument of garden architecture. After Kušan’s death in 1972, the garden was named after him. Fran Kušan received his PhD in botany at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb (1928). He was appointed associate professor (1940), and later full professor of phar¬maceutical botany (1942) and Head of Department of Pharmaceutical Botany (1945) at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Zagreb. Inspired by mountain botanical gardens in Europe, Kušan also established and designed the first two mountain botanical gardens in Croatia, the botanical garden on Medvednica mountain above Zagreb, founded in 1937, and the Velebit Botanical Garden, established in 1967 on the northern part of the Velebit mountain.