December 2014/ Opatija – Rijeka BUTCHER’S BROOM For several years now, P.I. “Priroda” has been cooperating with the Town of Opatija is designing Christmas and New Year cards that feature motifs of plants from the Liburnia region. This year the butcher’s broom has been selected. Nikola Tojaga, our design associate, made an illustration of the plant’s branches, while Jerko Gudac, our photographer-associate from Opatija, captured a scene of the typical use of the butcher’s broom in the streets of the Liburnia area … [more] |
November 2014/Njivice – Rosulje ROSULJE FOREST NEAR NJIVICE – DIFFERENT TYPES OF OAK TREES AND DIVERSE OAK GALLS Situated directly along the seashore, the lovely sub-Mediterranean forest in the Rosulje area near Njivice almost became the victim of a merciless fate. At the last moment (but only for the time being?), the forest was spared from felling. On the oak trees (which are very diverse) growing in the forest, we came across a multitude of oak galls of different shapes, a special feature of the biological diversity of the forest in the environs of Njivice … [more] |
October 2014/Rijeka – the Kvarner marine area MEDMPANET AND NEPTUNE GRASS October 2014 marks the end of MedMPAnet (Project for the Development of a Mediterranean Marine and Coastal Protected Areas (MPAs) Network through the boosting of MPAs creation and management). Project results will be posted on our Web pages. At this time, we would like briefly to call attention to the importance of marine flowering plants and the need for their protection, which was one of project’s aims … [more] |
POMEGRANATES FROM CRES ISLAND While gathering data about indigenous varieties and breeds for the 2015 Novi List and INA calendar, we turned to Mrs Mira Radunić, Ph.D., of the Institute for Adriatic Crops and Karst Reclamation in Split, concerning pomegranates growing on Cres Island. Because little is known of this variety of pomegranate, we sent her for analysis a sample of the native pomegranate from Cres Island, which was collected by Dino Fučić, our intern at P.I. “Priroda” … [more] |
WAXCAPS – rare and threatened fungi of grassy habitats With their brightly coloured fruit bodies (red, orange, yellow, grey, snow-white…) and specific habitats, fungi of the genus Hygrocybe are the equivalent of the loveliest and rarest flowers on meadows and pastures … [more] |
17 June 2014 /The Kvarner Bay islands – Krk Island ON WORLD DAY TO COMBAT DESERTIFICATION – CHRIST’S THORN The Republic of Croatia is a party to the UN International Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) that focuses on countries affected by strong droughts and/or desertification. As World Day to Combat Desertification is observed worldwide on 17 June, we would like to take this opportunity to talk about one of the typical shrubs of dry regions … [more] |
13 April 2014/ Trebišća above Mošćenička Draga MICROBE DAY IN CPGK Kombucha is a medicinal “tea fungus”, cultivated on sugared black or green tea, that has been known for more than two thousand years. It is made up of different types of bacteria and yeasts that float on fermented tea and form an amorphous, brownish mass. On the trunk of a toppled beech tree that had been sawn up and was oozing sap, we came across something that seemingly resembled the kombucha “fungus”… [more] |
March 2014/ The source of Rječina River RJEČINA DAY – WORLD WATER DAY – WORLD DAY OF FORESTS During a recent visit to the source of Rječina River, we came across an interesting phenomenon. Namely, on the roots of alder trees in the remnants of gallery forests we found lumps or nodules containing actinomycetes, bacteria that tie up atmospheric nitrogen … [more] |
NEGLECTED LAND AND RARE MUSHROOMS The purpose of this brief report about neglected land and rare mushrooms in Primorsko-Goranska County (PGC) is to point out a small paradox: despite being neglected and unwanted areas, the specific ecology of certain types of “forgotten land” can provide a haven for rare species … [more] |
CORNELIAN CHERRY, BEARS AND DROUGHT IN THE LITTORAL The Cornelian cherry has yielded very little fruit in the Littoral this year (2012). The yields of other fruits of the forest have also fallen short. These fruits of the forest are an important of part of the autumn diet of bears that ensures bears will gain the weight they need to survive the winter. To learn how this shortage of forest fruit will affect the wintering of bears, we will need to monitor their tracks and try to “catch” them on automatic forest cameras … [more] |