10 (2) December 2019: 135-142 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3600191 Spontaneous fora of the Vraca Memorial Park (Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina) Original Article Nermina Sarajlić Ornithological Society „Naše ptice“, Semira Frašte 6, 71000 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina nermina.sarajlic@ptice.ba (corresponding author) Nejc Jogan University of Ljubljana, Biotechnical Faculty, De- partment of Biology, Večna pot 111, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia Jernej.Jogan@bf.uni-lj.si Senad Murtić Department of Plant Production, Faculty of Agri- cultural and Food Sciences, University of Sarajevo, Zmaja od Bosne 8, 71000 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina murticsenad@hotmail.com Vladimir Ranđelović University of Niš, Faculty of Sciences and Mathemat- ics, Department of Biology and Ecology, Niš, Serbia vladar@pmf.ni.ac.rs Received: October 12, 2019 Revised: November 19, 2019 Accepted: November 24, 2019 Abstract: The Vraca Memorial Park was built in 1980-1981 around the old Austro- Hungarian fortress located above the city of Sarajevo, on northwestern slopes of Trebević mountain slightly above 600 m asl. It covers an area of approximately 8 ha. The southwestern part of the park is mostly cov- ered by semi-natural forest, the central part is mostly paved, whereas the northeastern part is partly covered by ornamental forest and some grass- land patches. Despite being declared a National Monument of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2005, the Park is neglected and ruined, which allowed di- verse subspontaneous vegetation to develop. The paper presents the results of systematic research and analysis of the spontaneous vascular fora of the Vraca Memorial Park. A total of 280 species of 182 genera and 67 families were recorded. With 37 species, Poaceae are the most abundant, followed by Compositae with 29, and Fabaceae and Rosaceae (23 species each). Nu- merous seedlings of shrubs and trees planted for ornamental purposes were observed, as well as the presence of two protected Orchidaceae species. Key words: Sarajevo, urban fora, urban habitats, alien fora, indicators of anthropogenic changes Apstract: Spontana fora Spomen-parka Vraca (Sarajevo, Bosna i Hercegovina) Spomen-park Vraca izgrađen je u periodu 1980-1981. godine oko stare aus- trougarske tvrđave koja se nalazi iznad grada Sarajeva, na severozapadnim padinama planine Trebević, malo iznad 600 m nadmorske visine. Prostire se na površini od oko 8 ha. Jugozapadni deo parka obrastao je poluprirod- nom šumom, centralni deo je popločan, a severoistočni prekriven travnatum površinama i ukrasnim drvećem i grmljem. Iako je 2005. proglašen nacional- nim spomenikom Bosne i Hercegovine, park je u velikoj meri zapušten, što je omogućilo razvoj raznovrsne subspontane vegetacije. U radu su prikazani re- zultati sistematskog istraživanja i analize spontane vaskularne fore Spomen- parka Vraca, gde je zabeleženo ukupno 280 vrsta iz 182 roda i 67 porodica, od kojih su najbrojnije Poaceae sa 37 vrsta, a slede Compositae sa 29 i Fabaceae i Rosaceae (svaka sa 23 vrste). U parku je zabeležen veliki broj klijanaca ukrasnog drveća i grmlja, kao i dve zaštićene vrste iz porodice Orchidaceae. Ključne reči: Sarajevo, urbana fora, urbana staništa, strana fora, indikatori antropogenih promena Introduction Parks are open urban spaces generally reserved for public use. They are often larger than other urban green spaces and tend to consist of diferent habitats with a number of native and introduced plant species, combined to satisfy recreational and other requirements of urban green areas. Nielsen et al. (2014) reviewed 62 papers on biodiversity of parks, and concluded that the fndings consistently showed that parks are among the most species rich types of urban green spaces. They also noted that most papers indicated large share of non-native species in parks. The same was noted for park of Lužnica manor © 2019 Sarajlić et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially under the same license as the original. 135 13 th Symposium on the Flora of Southeastern Serbia and Neighboring Regions