Commemorative Plaque to František Gogela in Rajnochovice

The memorial plaque of František Gogela (1854-1922) commemorates the botanical activities of this Catholic clergyman who worked in Rajnochovice in 1897-1907. Gogela was one of the outstanding botanists in the Moravian-Silesian Beskydy region. His significant achievements were not only the discoveries of new plant species and botanical views that were part of his publications, but also the extensive herbarium and Bryophyte (moss) collections he created during his botanical career.

František Gogela was born in a miller's family in Podhradní Lhota near Rajnochovice. He was greatly interested in natural sciences already during his studies at the Piarist grammar school in Kroměříž. One of his science and physics teachers was the renowned botanist and mineralogist František Xaver Veselý, who was born in Rajnochovice, the place where Gogela later served as a Catholic priest for ten years. During his studies, Gogela was intensively interested not only in botany, but also in entomology and ornithology. After his priestly ordination he served briefly in several places in Moravia (in Kyjov, Bílovice near Uherské Hradiště or Hukvaldy) and at this time he began to publish his first botanical works. From 1897 he served as clergyman in the place where he was born. He carried out intensive botanical mapping in this area and became one of the greatest experts of the Carpathian flora. During this period, Gogela kept detailed floristic records, established herbaria and collections of Bryophytes (mosses), corresponded with leading naturalists and discovered new plants in Moravia - Ostrich Fern (Struthiopteris germanica), puchýřník sudetský (Cystopteris sudetica) and řeřišnice trojlistá (Cardamine trifolia). He published the results of his research in Czech and German not only as articles in professional journals, but also as more extensive works, e.g. Flowers from the surroundings of Místek, which was an overview of systematically arranged plants with commentaries, published in 1890-1899, and Flowers of the Moravian Beskydy from 1903-1906. Gogela also described the flora of the Hostýn Hills in a number of essays, but his 1913 collective work Flowers of the Hostýn Mountains remained unfinished. Gogela worked on floristic research with great enthusiasm for more than 30 years. Gogela donated not only a collection of 39 mosses to the museum society in Valašské Meziříčí, but during the years 1898-1907 also the so-called Valašský herbarium, which contained 1,000 plants. This herbarium, which documents the Valašsko regional flora, later became the basis of the local museum botanical collections. Plants from the Hostýn area were contained in the so-called Hostýn herbarium, which contained 900 plants. Gogela donated this collection to the St. Hostýn Museum. Gogel`s name is borne by interspecific hybrids of Carex and Rosa: Rosa Gogelana and Carex Gogelana. From 1907 Gogela served as priest in Třebětice near Holešov, so he was able to return to his native region repeatedly. In Třebětice he also died on 27 February 1922.  

 

The memorial plaque of František Gogela was mounted on the building of the rectory, next to the church in Rajnochovice, on the initiative of Josef Svátek, then director of the then Municipal Museum of Local History in Holešov, on 21 September 1969.

Gogela, J. st., Gogela, J. ml.: P. František Gogela (1854–1922). In: Zálhotský sborník. 1993, s. 16–17. 

Kašparová, M.: František Gogela – botanik, sběratel a badatel. In: Zpravodaj Okresního vlastivědného muzea ve Vsetíně. 1995/5, s. 41–42.

Neznámý autor: František Gogela. In: Zálhotský sborník. 1931/5, s. 23–28. 

Popelářová, M..: Gogela František, Moravskoslezská pobočka České botanické společnosti. URL: https://www.ms-cbs.cz/osobnosti/gogela-frantisek/ [22.8.2021].

 

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