by Zeljko Heimer, 10 June 2004
Last modified: 2004-07-03 by dov gutterman
Keywords: zagreb | croatia | dubravica |
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by Zeljko Heimer, 10 June 2004
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Dubravica is a community in north-western corner of the Zagreb
County some 20 km NW of Zagreb.
Population about 5,500, the main vilage of the same name having
no more then about 500. In 1992 when the administrative reform in
Croatia wasd made the region was prescribed to be part of the
community of Hruševec Kupljenski, however this was against
the wish of the local population and such community was never
constituted. Rather the community of Dubravica was estabished
already in 1995.
The community symbol bacame a rather unusual endemic carnivorious
plant named in Croatian 'rosika' (in local dialect 'rozga'). The Coat of Arms is: Agrent a 'rosika' plant vert
with two thorny traps and with two flowers and two buds both of
the first. The flag is blue with the coat of arms bordered
golden. The Ceremonial Flag is a blue golfalon
with three rectangular tails containing oak ornaments, the coat
of arms is in the middle and the name of the community above in
two arches.
Sources: Puhacki orkestar Rozga, <www.orkestar-rozga.hr>,10.06.2004.
Prigorski Kaj, mjesecnik Grada Zaprešica, 2003
Zeljko Heimer, 10 June 2004
The plant seems to be a Drosera. The genus Drosera
is the type of the family Droseraceae. Droseras are
small plants which trap insects on their leaves, covered with
sticky glandulous hairs, and slowly "digest" them by
releasing proteolytic enzymes. The droseras lives in marshes and
peat bogs, where their dense colonies can form kinds of floating
mats. The most common drosera is Drosera rotundifolia.
All droseras are endangered and protected, although it is
difficult to avoid trampling them in places where they are very
common, as for instance the Lofoten island in northern Norway.
Another plant of the same family is Aldrovandia vesiculosa,
an insectivorous plant which was already marked RRR (that is very
very rare) in the plant guides of the beginning of the century
and might have disappeared from France today. Digesting insects
help these plants to survive in a very acid, poor in nitrogen
environment.
In English, the common name of the drosera is sundew. In French,
the traditional name of the drosera is rossolis, which
seems to be cognate of rosika and rozga. The
name rossolis was derived from Latin ros solis,
sun dew. The plant is also called rosee-du-soleil (lit.,
sundew) and herbe-a-la-rosee (lit., dew herb). The
scientific name Drosera was of course coined by Carl
Linne, and means "covered with dew" in Ancient Greek.
This sun dew is made by the droplets of glue secreted by the
hairs of the plants, which glisten in the sun. I have no evidence
on this, but I won't be surprised if "dew" production
was synchronized with the sunrise, when insects start to fly here
and there and visit flowers.
The drosera was a matter of controversy among botanists. The
great botanist Gaston Bonnier (1853-1922), who popularized
botany, wrote several flores portatives for plants,
mosses and lichens, and did also several interesting research
work, refused to admit that the droseras were carnivorous plants.
Another famous author of plante guides, Paul Fournier, presents
the droseras as carnivorous, with the following footnote full of
respect and probably also irony: "Bonnier claims the
opposite; however, his opinion is no longer tenable".
The rossolis (here related to rose) was also a liquor
made of burned brandy, sugar and cinnamon. Louis XIV enjoyed the rossolis
du Roy, made of Spanish wine, brandy and other products as
advized by his doctors. They also told him that sport was god for
his health, that was playing billiards and go hunting in his
coach. Louis XIV, in spite of several congenital diseases and
malformations, died at the very respectable age of 77 years,
after a 72 year reign.
Ivan Sache, 11 June 2004
by Zeljko Heimer, 10 June 2004
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by Zeljko Heimer, 10 June 2004