In the 1766-1787 period, Balthasar Hacquet, a physician, naturalist, ethnologist and mountaineer, worked in Carniola. He was a doctor in Idrija and a professor at the Ljubljana Lyceum later on. He was also involved in vegetation research. Hacquet’s principal botanical work, titled Plantae alpinae Carniolicae (Carniolan Alpine Plants), was published in 1782 in Vienna. In it, he described 12 plants proliferating in the Carniolan Mts and Istria which were, in his opinion, new although still undescribed plants. He named all of them by place and locality and also drew them. Herbarium specimens of some of them have survived in the collection kept by the Slovenian Museum of Natural History. In the Triglav Mts he found the Triglav Hawksbear (Crepis terglouensis) and the Triglav Gentian (Gentiana terglouensis). He discovered a new pincushion species, the famous Trenta Scabious (Scabiosa trenta), and collected it for his herbarium collection.
Sheet with Triglav Hawksbear (Crepis terglouensis), collected by Hacquet on the slope of Mt Triglav. He classified it among hawkbits (Leontodon terglavense). Photo: David Kunc
Sheet with the Triglav Gentian (Gentiana terglouensis). On top of the sheet is a specimen collected by Hacquet. Photo: David Kunc
Sheet with the "mysterious Trenta Scabious" (Scabiosa trenta). The plant was allegedly collected by Hacquet on the slopes of Mt Triglav, but eventually it became extinct there. Several botanists, including Julius Kugy, searched for it in vain. Later, it was concluded that Hacquet had not found a new pincushion species, but a Giant Scabious (Cephalaria leucantha), which proliferates in the karst. Photo: Ciril Mlinar Cic