Czech Republic: Prokop Valley Revival

Volunteers from the Botanic Garden of the Charles University led by the professors couple Vera and Lubomir Hroudovi supervised a botanical workshop for children and their parents. The kids learned how to recognize common Czech weeds and blossoms present in the Prokop Valley and broader surroundings. They also guessed names of the herbs through a smell test. Mums and dads joined guided excursions to the foots of Prokop Valley limestone cliffs, the domicile of indigenous Festuca valesiaca, F. rupicola, Stipa pennata, Sesleria caeruleaAster linosyris will disappear within a few decades.

The zoologists led by Mgr. Michal Fokt demonstrated evidence of rodents by their droppings. Let us mention for example the bank vole (Clethrionomys glareolus). Thanks to the unexpectedly warm day they could also report a concentration of the butterflies Meleagria daphnis and its indigenous variant, claimed by some local patriots to be a separate species. Beautiful swallowtail (Papilio machaon), one of the biggest Czech butterflies, visited the area of the base camp. The local endemic snail Bulgarica nitidos(Onthophagus vittulus)