Botanist Václav Větvička remembered in Košumberk, Czechia

An evening farewell to botanist Václav Větvička, the longtime director of the Prague Botanical Garden, was held at the Hamza Clinic in Košumberk. He died on 29 July at the age of 88. As Novinky reports, the packed hall of Pavilion K heard memories rather than funeral speeches.

His mark on Košumberk

Větvička had worked with the clinic since 1998, visited often and helped greatly with planting trees in its well-known arboretum. He was tied to Košumberk and the work in its arboretum for 25 years, and he died here. Even shortly before his death he was still advising what to plant and where: he remembered the park almost photographically and knew which shrubs and trees “got along” with one another.

He is now commemorated by a corner with a work desk and an armchair, as well as a quote and a portrait on the façade of one of the pavilions: “Plants don’t need us. We need them.”

“He turned down the title”

The clinic’s director, Václav Volejník, said he had addressed the botanist formally, but Větvička rejected the title “doctor” right away. “He simply became our Václav,” Volejník said. Větvička himself liked to invent unusual forms of address for the people he spoke to. Singer Jana Richterová, who performed with him in a joint programme (she played guitar and sang, he read his satirical columns), recalled: “Václav called me ‘Your Grace’, so I had to come.”

According to her, the botanist loved songs about food, and duck even more. When she posted their last joint photo on social media along with news of his death, it drew 600 comments, and not one of them, she said, was negative. Her mother put it this way: Václav Větvička was “more tree than human.”

Volejník added that the botanist shared his love of Hana Hegerová’s songs and of the calendula plant, and never rejected his ideas for laying out the park. That is why the hall heard the chansonnier’s well-known song “Live and Let Live”. Hegerová was born on Arbor Day, and Větvička and the artist Martin Patřičný once invited her to the announcement of the Day of Trees and Timber.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz