History

At the time of the founding of the Pharmaceutical Department of the Medical Faculty in 1939, the Institute of Botany was also founded. The first professor of botany and the first head of the Institute was professor Stevan Jakovljević. Classes in botany, which were then in the first year of study, began in the fall of 1939. The institute was then located in one part of the building of the Histological-Physiological Institute of the Medical Faculty.

Before World War II, the first collections of anatomical preparations, herbariums for teaching, literature were made at the Institute of Botany, and at the beginning of 1941, microscopes were also purchased. During the Second World War, the entire inventory was completely destroyed, as well as a part of the building of the Histo-Physiological Institute of the Medical Faculty. In 1945, the Institute began to work again in very difficult conditions and to be fundamentally renovated. At the end of 1949 the reconstruction of the building of the Histo-Physiological Institute was completed, in which the Institute of Botany received a large number of study rooms, laboratories, and a joint exercise room with 64 microscopy workplaces, used by the Institute of Botany and the Institute of Pharmacognosy. On the green area next to the building of the Histo-Physiological Institute, there was also a small botanical garden in which cultivated plants were needed for teaching and experimental work.

Professor Stevan Jakovljević wrote the first textbook General Botany, which was published in 1948 and was intended for the subject of botany at the University of Belgrade. Later, in 1950, professor Jakovljević published Systematics of medicinal plants, which completed the textbook literature on the subject of botany at the Faculty of Pharmacy. In 1976, professors Leposava Stjepanović and Milica Ćorović published supplementary scripts in botany. In 1974, students received the first practicum Anatomy of plants made according to the program for practical teaching of botany at the Faculty of Pharmacy, written by dr Radomir Nikolić, dr Stamenko Pavlović and dr Predrag Živanović. In 1981, the textbook Systematics of medicinal plants by professors S. Pavlović and P. Živanović. Handbook for exercises in botany by prof. Radiša Jančić and his assistant Branislava Lakušić was published in 1995, and in 2002 a new textbook Botanika farmaceutika by professor Radiša Jančić was published. The supplemented VI edition of the textbook Botanika farmaceutika by professors Radiša Jančić and Branislava Lakušić was published in 2017.

Dušan Petković (1954-1957), Vera Janković (1954-1957), Milan Čanak (1957-1962) and Slavoljub Vujičić (1979-1984) worked as assistants at the Institute for a while.

The head of the Institute of botany were: Professor Stevan Jakovljević (1939–1961), prof. Leposava Stjepanović-Veseličić (1961–1976), prof. Radomir Nikolić (1976–1979), prof. Stamenko Pavlović (1979–1989), prof. Predrag Živanović (1989-2000), prof. Radiša Jančić (2000–2016), and since 2016 prof. Branislava Lakušić.