The same point of view: Masaryk university’s Faculty of Science then and now
A bird’s eye view of the whole campus, including the gardens is always interesting. Today, you can use drones with a camera in some places, while in others we still have to rely on a roof window of the surrounding buildings, from which we have to lean out dangerously with an expensive camera to achieve the desired image.
he surrounding residential buildings of the Veveří district, many of which have Art Nouveau decoration, are about 25 metres high and usually have around five floors with high roofs, under which luxurious attic flats are slowly being built today. Today, the tallest trees in the garden reach similar heights. One of these is a living fossil, the Chinese metasequoia, a deciduous conifer originally known only from fossils but discovered living in China in the 1950s. Since then the seeds of this rarity have been sent all over the world. Our metasequoia is about 65 years old.
Tree species in cities do not live to the same age they could theoretically reach in their natural forest environment. They become weakened by a lack of root space, which is exacerbated right at the beginning of their lives by the fact that seedlings already have a deformed root system from being grown in pots or simply by transplanting and trimming the roots. The treetops also suffer from the summer heat in the hot city. Rainwater does penetrate well into the desiccated terrain or flows directly off paved surfaces into drains. Constant excavations and building work further damage the roots, and covering of the trunks with backfill suffocates the plant. String mowers can damage the bark and branches are often pruned inappropriately. As the first branches begin to dry out, such trees must be removed prematurely for the safety of people and property. Even on our property, the tree canopy has changed at least twice in the last hundred years; first after the Second World War, when trees were cut down for fuel and many were damaged by bombs, and second after reconstruction of the university complex in 2008.
