THE BOTANIC GARDEN JIBOU
(Grădina Botanică Jibou) #
(A zsibói füvészkert)
Vasile Fati
The Botanic Garden in Jibou was founded in 1968 by the teacher Vasile Fati as part of the local high school. It became independent in 1970 but it preserved the former mission which was and is a didactic base for teaching Biology and an educational establishment for the visiting public in the spirit of love and respect for nature. Between 1978 and 1989 the Botanic Garden was known as The Young Naturalists' Station and in 1990 it became the main part of The Biological Research Center in Jibou.
The Botanic Garden has an area of 25 hectares and it lies in the north-eastern part of the town on the second terrace of the Somes river. The Garden also sets off to advantage in a remarkable way the old park that existed around the medieval castle, the former seniorial residence of the Wesselenyi family.
The Botanic Garden is organized in sectors, each sector being established on certain criteria such as: decorative, geographical origin, ecological and genetic, systematic, dendrologic, economic, administrative, the hot house complex and medicinal herbs.
The collection of plants has more than 5000 individuals of different species from all over the world. It must be mentioned that some of the sectors, which are being organized, can be visited only under certain circumstances when the specialized people can provide the necessary guiding and explanation.
The decorative sector begins at the entrance up to the hothouse complex and it has an area of ten thousand square meters. Within this sector a large number of annual, biannual and perennial decorative plants display a new scenery each season. This sector offers all a choice to know and learn about decorative plants as well as the opportunity to become initiated in arranging flowers and in the technology of growing decorative plants.
The geographical origin sector lies in the center of the garden and it occupies an area of 11 hectares having varied forms of relief. The way the plants are grouped takes into account the geographical origin. There are mainly representative plants for the Far East and visitors can find here an exquisite Japanese Garden. Farther on tourists can admire the rockery and sandy plateaus with cacti as well as the juicy plants coming from African and Mexican deserts.
The geographical sector includes the Roman Garden where one can encounter plants that used to grow in old roman gardens. In addition to all these there are also flowers and bushes that were brought from the Caucasian Mountains, the Alps, the Pyrenees and North America.
This part of the garden contains elements of Romanian flora which are representative for the Transylvanian Plain, Banat, Oltenia and the Carpathians. Walking through this sector visitors can easily notice that the flora of different regions is outstandingly varied and that there is a close interdependence between plants and environment
The Systematic Sector now being arranged stretches on an area of 3,5 hectares and is situated in the north-eastern part of the garden. It includes the artificial lake and a recently discovered place that has a rich fossil flora and fauna. The systematic sector is intended to be organized so as the most important families of plants could be arranged successively and whose selected representatives should be able to grow under the climate conditions in our country. This sector offers the opportunity to watch closely the progressive evolution of plants from primitive to advanced forms.
The ecological and genetic sector, 2 hectares of land, is situated next to the geographical one. There, one can become aware of how the vegetal world is organized, of the evolution of plants of adapting to environment conditions and of the role of the humans in directing the evolutionary process.
The economical sector spreads on 2,5 hectares and it covers the south-eastern part of the Botanic Garden. This sector draws the visitor's attention to the modern and technical way of arrangement: terraces, draining system, support walls, automatic watering. The land is planted with varied species of bushes, fruit trees and grape-vine; in order to protect them against early or late autumn frost special technology has been accomplished.
The Medicinal Herb Sector has 250 square meters. The collections of medicinal herbs are grouped by the diseases they can cure or relieve such as heart diseases, rheumatism, liver and gall, lungs complaint or skin diseases etc.
Next to medicinal herbs visitors can see other useful or harmful plants such as aromatic and spicy plants, industrial crops and toxic plants.
The dendrologic sector (5 hectares) preserves the natural aspect of a forest and it includes impressive deciderous and coniferous trees. The sector contains a space (0,5 ha) where a rich variety of dendrologic species are produced.
The Botanic Garden has 3 hot house complexes (piles of buildings) covering an area of 4000 square meters. One of them houses the research activities. Another one, larger in size, was built to produce flowers and decorative plants.
A great attraction for tourists is the green house complex that has eight compartments in which tropical and subtropical plants grow. The access to the hothouse is through a presentation and guiding hall.
In the smaller dome/globe, an aquarium, one can admire numerous equatorial plants.
In the central warm water pool the famous water-lily, Victoria amazonica, grows beautifully. In special pots and bowls the visitors can see the cocoa tree, papaya, sugar cane, etc.
The larger dome/globe houses a rich collection of palm trees such as Phoenix dactylifera, Phoenix canariensis, Arcantophoenix, Washingtonia, Cocos, Trahycarpus and banana trees that impress mainly because of the diversity of shapes, of exotic, lush vegetation. In the center of the hothouse the visitors' attention is captured by cycas, Ceratozamia and Zamia, that are remains of second age flora.
Leaving the palm tree hothouse, on the left in the third green-house, the exotic scenery of the orchids offers delight as these exquisite flowers are amazingly colorful and give off enchanting scent.
On the right, in the fourth hothouse Mediterranean plants are carefully looked after. Olive trees, myrrh, lemon, grapefruit and orange trees emerge their distinguished perfume. The place where the Australian plants are displayed comes next and tourists can see varied species of Ficus, Araucaria, Grevilea, Callistemon, Eucaliptus. From the hothouse of the Australian plants one can enter another four hothouses. On the left there is one with different species of ferns among which a special interest is aroused by the tree fern, Alsophyla australis and Platycerium.
In the next hothouse the visitors can gaze at the collections of Araceae and Bromeliaceae that present different forms of adaptation , and have brightly colored flowers. Among the numerous species of these two families, the best known are Calla, Monstera, Philodendron, Pistia, Pineapple etc.
The other two compartments house 750 species of cacti and juicy plants coming from African and Mexican deserts.
The seed sector includes a hothouse and a laboratory that selects, stocks and tests the viability of the seeds, so that the exchange of seeds with different Romanian and foreign labs could be achieved appropriately. The exchange of seeds is worked out by means of the catalogue "Index seminum" which is published every year.
The Herbarium, the Botanic Museum and specialized library can be found on the ground and first floors of the botanic institute, which was opened in 2002. The Herbarium that has been set up recently contains about 1500 paper sheets with cultivated and spontaneous plants collected by the people working at the Garden and donated by well-known specialists.
In the museum one can see collections of seeds, different types of dried and preserved fruits, stems cross sections, leaf prints and collections of minerals and rocks all of them being used as materials for the students and a source to improve the general knowledge of the visiting public.
The staff of the Botanic Garden work hard not only to make new collections of plants that have economic and scientific value but also to extend the existing collections by growing rare and endangered species.
Improvements have been made by using computers to keep a record of species of plants and to create a database for this institution. In the well equipped research laboratories all the conditions are provided for the researchers to multiply "in vitro" a varied range of decorative plants such as orchids, carnations, gloxinia, aloe etc. The staff are also able to multiply rare or endangered species so tat these would be reintroduced in the environment.
The Botanic Garden can be visited by groups of students but they can also have didactic activities with their teachers and the staff of the garden.
The Botanic garden organizes scientific foreign and Romanian reunions and meetings. The results of the research activity are published in specialized magazine and catalogues.
The tourists who are more numerous every year, can find a place to rest and learn, a place of delight where the beauty of flowers offers tranquillity and peace.
The Botanic Garden in Jibou, through its diverse activities, proves to have an active part in the teaching process and it is like a school whose role is to protect nature. Creating conditions for plants that are similar to those in the natural environment the Botanic Garden makes possible for students and tourists to understand that by protecting nature we create or maintain a source of natural beauty, an inexhaustible reserve of food and raw material for people's needs.
Thank you for visiting us and we are looking forward to having you back soon.
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Pagini îngrijite de Györfi-Deák György, Biblioteca Orăşenească Jibou, judeţul Sălaj