Velebit Botanical Garden

The Velebit Botanical Garden, the Botanički vrt Velebit, sits at Zavižan on the high northern part of the Velebit mountain, and it is a dedicated collection of the mountain’s distinctive plant life, including the endemics that grow only here, such as the Velebit degenia, Degenia velebitica, which appears on the Croatian 50-lipa coin. It was founded in 1966 by the Croatian mountaineering society.

The garden is laid out over a karst meadow at roughly 1,500 metres, and its beds hold hundreds of mountain species gathered from across the range, including many that have adapted to the harsh, windy, lime-rich conditions of the Velebit. The garden is informal, less a manicured showpiece than a living catalogue of the mountain’s flora, and it is at its best during the short alpine summer.

The Zavižan area is also home to the Zavižan mountain hut and the meteorological station that gives the area its famously cold winter temperatures, and it is the starting point for several of the trails into the Northern Velebit strict reserves. The Premužić trail passes nearby.

For photographers, the garden’s flowers against the bare karst are the macro subject, and the Velebit degenia in its stone bed is the shot to look for. Reach Zavižan by the slow mountain road from Krasno or on foot, and go in July for the peak flowering.

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