Stanisław Batys Gorski (1802–1864) was a pharmacist, botanist, and entomologist. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, he headed the Vilnius University Botanical Garden and lectured on botany at the Imperial University of Vilnius and the Vilnius Medical and Surgical Academy. It is a known fact that the Herbarium of Vilnius University (WI) contains Gorski’s largest collection of vascular plants. In 2016, the nineteenth-century collection of bryophytes in WI was analyzed. The analysis of handwriting on specimen labels, as well as their style, showed that more than half of the collection had been compiled by Gorski. The purpose of this study is to present Gorski’s reassembled bryological collection, which contains 729 specimens of bryophytes and is stored in the Herbarium of Vilnius University.

Jukonienė I., Subkaitė M., Ričkienė A., 2019: Herbarium data on bryophytes from the eastern part of Lithuania (1934)(1935)(1936)(1937)(1938)(1939)(1940) in the context of science history and landscape changes. -Botanica, 25(1): 41-53.The paper deals with bryophytes collected by Polish researchers from the mires in the eastern part of Lithuania in 1934-1940 and deposited at the Herbarium of W. Szafer Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of Sciences (KRAM). The collection provides data on bryophyte diversity and distribution patterns in the mires of Lithuania. The collection (868 specimens) was revised in 2016-2017. Almost 90% of all herbarium specimens were collected by Irena Dąbkowska. The specimens were identified by the collectors themselves or by Polish bryologist Zygmunt Czubiński; 254 specimens of the collection were not identified. After revision, a total of 112 bryophyte species were ascertained in the collection, two of these (Palustriella decipiens and Polytrichum swartzii) have not been reported to Lithuania before. The specimens were collected in 47 localities, the mires in nearly half of them at the moment are disturbed due to drainage or use for peat extraction. Information about the localities of rare species Hamatocaulis vernicosus, Meesia triquetra and Mesoptychia rutheana is valuable for the estimation of their population status.

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The first scientific description of the flora of the Białowieża Primeval Forest (Puszcza Białowieska) was published in 1829 in Stanisław Batys Gorski’s paper “O roślinach żubrom upodobanych, jakoteż innych w puszczy Białowiezkiey [About preferred plants of the European bison and other plants from the Białowieża Primeval Forest]”. This publication comprised the first critical evaluation of the plant species present in the forest based on several field surveys during 1822, 1823 and 1826 by Gorski, and it dismissed the popular hypothesis that the European bison ( Bison bonasus) survived there because some of its preferred forage plants were exclusively found in the forest. To assess the importance of Gorski’s contribution to studies on the flora of the Białowieża Primeval Forest, we critically evaluated all his materials on the topic, including manuscripts, plant specimens collected by Gorski now preserved in Vilnius University Herbarium and his published works, and also traced all mentions and references to Gorski’s studies in later botanical works devoted to the Białowieża Primeval Forest.

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