Director of the Botanical Garden of the University of Warsaw

As of 2019, the Botanical Garden of the University of Warsaw has been in charge of associate professor Marcin Zych who investigates relationships between plants and their pollinators. Under his supervision, the Garden’s scientific section and botanical plant collections have been expanded.

Professor Marcin Zych lectures at the Faculty of Biology, UW, on plant pollination biology, botany, dendrology, flora and fauna. Moreover, he teaches environmental education at the Postgraduate Course in Biology and gives lectures on organisms in natural environment at the Nature Education Programme. He is involved in the broadly oriented popularization of natural sciences (through publications, lectures, podcasts and broadcasts).

He is a member of the Rector’s Team for Green University Development and the UW for Climate team.
His scientific interests include biology of pollination of angiosperms with a focus on the umbelliferous family (Apiaceae), cultivated and endangered plants, and evolution of plant reproduction strategies. Furthermore, he conducts studies on phylogeny of plants in the Apiaceae family and on conservation of biodiversity.

 

Educational and Cultural center

Educational and Cultural Center of the Botanical Garden of the University of Warsaw hosts annual festivities. The Harvest Festival of 2022, held on the weekend of October 15-16, attracted more than two thousand visitors.

The Education Centre organizes events related to each year’s theme. First was the Year of Fibre and Dye Plants. The year 2023 has been dedicated to scents, which means that most workshops and meetings will address the topic of scents in nature.

Over the past three years, educational offerings of the Botanical Garden of the University of Warsaw Education Centre have been furthered as well.

In spite of the difficulties posed by the pandemic, the number of visitors to the Garden has increased in recent years – from 77,000 in 2021 to more than 100,000 in 2022. Last winter, the Magic Botanic exhibition attracted more than 40,000 visitors.

In total, over 140,000 people came to see the Botanical Garden of the University of Warsaw last year. This is the highest number on record in the past 30 years.

Attendance at the Botanic Garden keeps increasing year by year. Surely, this success follows from spectacular affairs taking place at the Garden, such as the blooming of the Giant Corpse Flower (Amorpophallus Titanum) in June 2021 or the opening of the Magic Botanic winter garden with special lighting décor.

The workshops and walks organized in 2022 were attended by over 6,000 people, a thousand more than in the previous year.

The Botanical Garden of the University of Warsaw has developed an educational offer for Ukrainian visitors. It also provides online garden consultations on a variety of topics, including the ever more popular topic of fungi.

The Botanical Garden of the University of Warsaw presently collaborates with the Design Faculty of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, and the Museum of Pharmacy in Warsaw, participates in the Biologists’ Night and the Night of Museums, co-organizes the Cinema in Sneakers Film Festival and the Midsummer Night’s Wreath Festival, conducts Botanical Illustration Workshops and Practical Botany Workshops (the latter led by the garden’s former director Hanna Werblan Jakubiec), takes part in the Science Festival , and runs mycological consultations.