Last modified: 2008-10-11 by ivan sache
Keywords: dobrova - polhov gradec | flower: 4 petals (white) | daphne | leaves: oak | acorns: 2 (red) |
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![[Flag of Dobrova]](../images/s/si-021.gif)
![[Vertical flag of Dobrova]](../images/s/si-021v.gif)
Municipal flag of by Dobrova - Polhov Gradec, horizontal and vertical versions - Images by Željko Heimer, 24 December 2001
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The municipality of Dobrova - Polhov Gradec seceded from the former municipality of Vič-Rudnik, which was one of the municipalities forming the town of Ljubljana until 1995. It took the name of Dobrova - Horjul - Polhov Gradec until the formation of the municipality of Horjul in 1998.
The name "Dobrova" is probably related to the old Slavic word
dob meaning "oak", as shown on the coat of
arms.
The name "Polhov Gradec" means "Dormouse's Castle", referring to the edible dormouse (Glis glis). The dormouse is an important element of the Slovene cultural heritage. See Dormouse hunting as part of Slovene national identity by Magda Peršič (Nat. Croat. 7, 199-211, 1998) and The Slovenian Myth about the Devil as the Shepherd of Dormice (ibidem).
Željko Heimer, Ivan Sache & Eugene Ipavec, 16 February 2008
According to Stanič & Jakopič [j2s05], the symbols of Dobrova - Polhov Gradec were adopted on 24 March 1999.
The symbols were designed by Valt Jurečič of Heraldika d.o.o. and Heraldica Slovenica, who kindly provided drawings from which the images shown on this page were made.
The flag is rectangular, in proportions 2:5, vertically divided into a yellow square field at hoist and a green rectangular field at fly. In the hoist square are placed the attributes from the coat of arms, the twig and flower.
The colour specifications are given by Stanič & Jakopič [j2s05] as:
- Light yellow: Pantone 109
- Golden yellow: Pantone 1225
- Green: Pantone 355
- Blue: Pantone 300
- Red: Pantone 185
- Black: Pantone Black
Željko Heimer, 6 January 2006
![[Coat of arms of Dobrova]](../images/s/si)021.gif)
Coat of arms of Dobrova - Polhov Gradec - Image by Željko Heimer, 6 January 2006
The coat of arms of Dobrova - Polhov Gradec is "Or bordered along flanks azure issuant from base an oak twig sable with two acorns gules slipped and cupped of the third and two leaves vert and in chief a quatrefoil argent barbed vert and seeded of the first".
The blue flanks are 1/15 of the width of the entire coat of arms.
Two different shades of green are used for the leaves and barbs (100% Pantone 355cv and 80% Pantone 355cv, respectively).
Valt explains that the village of Dobrova wanted to show the oak
in the municipal coat of arms, which was achieved with two leaves and
two red acorns. The other part of the municipality, Polhov Gradec, is
represented with a flower that was discovered there in the middle of
the XVIIIth century. The name of this flower is blagajev volčin or blagajana
in Slovene and Daphne blagayana in botanical Latin. For the
use on the coat of arms the representation of the flower was
simplified.
Another request from the Mayor was that the two streams of the
municipality would be represented on the coat of arms too, which was
achieved with the blue border of the shield.
Željko Heimer, 24 December 2001
The website of the Slovene Government Communication Office relates the discovery of D. blagayana as follows:
The first custodian of the Provincial Museum in Ljubljana was the natural historian Henrik Freyer. He is best known in the botanical world as the godfather of Blagay's Daphne, the plant about which Slovene botanists have probably written most.
In 1837, one of the farmers from Sveti Lavrenc brought the Polhov Gradec Count Rihard Blagay the flowering branch of a yellow daphne. The count sent it to Ljubljana to his friend Freyer, who recognised it as new and named it after the sender. The new species of daphne in the herbarium collection of German dried flowers quite simply conquered Europe.
In 1838, the "famous Saxon King Frederick Augustus II, well-known as an enthusiastic botanist and a special patron of this science" came to see it in its birthplace. "In the forest on the northern slopes under the church, His Highness experienced the pleasure at 11 o'clock of being the first foreigner to pick the beautiful, pale daphne with his own hands, in its only locality".
In memory of the king's visit, the same year Blagay set up a unique, four metre high monument to the king, his visit, and the daphne which had begun to be known as the king of flowers.
For some decades, Blagay's Daphne remained a botanical rarity, a mark of Carniola. Only later was it ascertained that it is an Illyrian species which is also distributed in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Romania. It even grows elsewhere in Slovenia: in Posotelje, Zasavje, in Kočevje, in the Polhov Gradec hills and in the valley of the Trubušnica in Primorska. Some years ago, it was found in the Carnian Alps in Italy.
Ivan Sache, 15 February 2008