VDU Kaunas Botanical Garden is 100 years old: few people know the history of the largest conservatory in Lithuania

Currently, there are about 2,700 active botanical gardens in the world. They come in a wide variety of types, from cultural, thematic, traveling to natural or mountain vegetation, or even hybrids – botany and zoology in one.

The botanical garden of Vytautas Magnus University (VDU) has university qualifications, which means that it is perceived as an academic department.

History was made by more than one important person

One of the creators of the botanical garden idea and the founder of the garden itself was Liudas Vailionis.

As stated by prof. who presented the report on the history of the establishment of the Botanical Garden of the University of Lithuania at the 27th scientific, interdisciplinary Kaunas History Conference organized by VMU. skilled Dr. skilled Ona Ragažinskienė, it can be said that L. Vailionis was the person who justified the need for a botanical garden as a study and science center.

According to the professor, another important person in the history of the Kaunas Botanical Garden was Jonas Šimkus. After obtaining a master’s degree in chemistry at the University of Moscow, completing an internship and obtaining a master’s degree in pharmacy in Switzerland, and working in Russia for some time, J. Šimkus returned to Lithuania with his wife and daughters in 1918.

Here he became a minister in 4 governments and in 1922 was appointed the first rector of the University of Lithuania by the then president of Lithuania, Aleksander Stulginskis.

Although he worked in this position for only one year, thanks to him, the Constituent Seimas introduced the statute of the University of Lithuania and laid the foundation for the university’s activities. Well, the establishment of the university directly contributed to the establishment of the botanical garden.

After the end of the rector’s duties, J. Šimkus continued his pedagogical and scientific work. Until the 1940s, he headed the Department of Organic Chemistry Technology of the Faculty of Technology.

According to the speaker, students from various fields liked to listen to his lectures – from pharmacy, biology to economics.

What is the connection between St. Petersburg and Kaunas botanical gardens?

Almost the most important person in the history of Kaunas Botanical Garden of the University of Lithuania is Konstantinas Regelis, a botanist of Swiss origin who, according to a report on the LRT program “7 Kauno dienos”, was invited to Lithuania by L. Vailionis from the University of Tartu.

He was assigned to create the Department of Botany and the Botanical Garden of the Faculty of Nature of the University of Lithuania, and thus he became the head of this garden from 1923 to the 1940s.

As K. Regel intensively communicated with many foreign botanical gardens, the Kaunas Botanical Garden was developed very rapidly.

“Because he had a diplomatic passport, he was able to travel freely around universities. Other scientists of that time did not have such an opportunity”, said O. Ragažinskienė in the report.

While creating the botanical garden, K. Regel wanted it to serve science, studies, public education and as a recreational space.

According to the speaker, it can be said that Konstantin inherited a connection with botanical gardens from his family. Here, his grandfather Eduard Regel was the head of the oldest botanical garden in St. Petersburg, and his uncle Arnold was one of the most famous park architects of that period.

According to Dr. According to Nerijas Jurkonis in the aforementioned LRT show, K. Regelis not only founded the botanical garden, he also helped invent the Lithuanian botanical dictionary.

Together with his students, he searched for appropriate terms to describe certain botanical aspects, for example, thanks to him, words such as “bog” and “cell” were coined.

Saved from destruction

Another important person in the history of the botanical garden was professor Kazys Grybauskas.

According to the information provided on the website of the VDU Botanical Garden, he was one of the first professional researchers of medicinal plants (pharmacognosts) and pioneers of herbalism in Lithuania.

In 1924, K. Grybauskas was assigned to work in the Kaunas Botanical Garden of the University of Lithuania – to create a department of medicinal plants and prepare exhibits.

The representatives of the military leadership were convinced that medicinal plants would be able to compensate for the lack of medicine in the army.

Since 1940, when the former head of the botanical garden K. Regel retired to Switzerland, prof. K. Grybauskas became the new head of the botanical garden of VMU.

During World War II, K. Grybauskas managed to save the botanical garden and the orangery from destruction by convincing the representatives of the military command that medicinal plants would be able to compensate for the lack of medicine in the army.

The territory of Freda’s manor was not chosen by chance

According to O. Ragažinskienė’s report, there was a long discussion about where exactly the botanical garden should be established. Three places have been chosen – the territory of Parodas Kalnos, the space in Ėuolyne and the territory of Freda Manor Park.

Predictably, the third option was chosen. The lower school of horticulture-horticulture was already located here, so it was an area with many rare trees and a pond system – a perfect place for an academic botanic garden.

It is interesting that, according to the current director of the Kaunas Botanical Garden, dr. Juzefs Godlevskis, owner of N. Jurkonio’s and Freda’s manor, came up with a very original way to perpetuate his name – the ponds on the manor’s territory form the letters J and G – his initials.

The largest conservatory in Lithuania

K. Regel, while creating the botanical garden, foresaw that there must be greenhouses in which tropical plants would be grown and studied.

The Orangery of the Kaunas Botanical Garden is the largest in Lithuania.

According to the information provided on the VDU Botanical Garden website, the first greenhouses-orangery in the Botanical Garden of the University of Lithuania were built in 1923-1925. It was a 4 compartment building that maintained a constant temperature and had a pool for exotic tropical plants.

Currently, the orangery of the Kaunas Botanical Garden is the largest in Lithuania. It grows more than 1,000 different types of plants.