Flo­ra Raet­i­ca relies on the ded­i­ca­tion of its vol­un­teers. Through their obser­va­tions, they make an impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion to doc­u­ment­ing the flo­ra of Graubün­den.

In our por­trait series, we intro­duce the peo­ple behind Flo­ra Raet­i­ca.

Today: Simon Gysi, a soft­ware devel­op­er from Zurich. He has been involved with the project since 2022.

This por­trait pho­to of Simon Gysi was tak­en on May 29, 2026, dur­ing the map­ping week­end in the Safien­tal val­ley at the Bischola Pass. Pho­to: Ingrid Jansen.

Simon, how did you get into botany?
Thanks to my grand­fa­ther, I was inter­est­ed in nature even as a child. While my enthu­si­asm for plants was lim­it­ed as a teenag­er, I lat­er often found myself drawn to col­or­ful plants while moun­tain climbing—though I didn’t know what they were. On the rec­om­men­da­tion of an uncle, I took BirdLife’s field botany course. When Flo­ra Raet­i­ca was pre­sent­ed to the Zurich Botan­i­cal Soci­ety short­ly there­after, I didn’t have to think twice about join­ing.

Which sea­son do you find most inter­est­ing from a botan­i­cal perspective—and why?
Except for win­ter, I find all the sea­sons inter­est­ing, and I always look for­ward to get­ting to know the plants as they go through their var­i­ous stages. Dif­fer­ent species can be seen depend­ing on the sea­son, so there’s always some­thing new to dis­cov­er.

Why are you involved with Flo­ra Raet­i­ca?
Being out­doors and the “trea­sure hunt” bring me joy, and of course it’s also nice to be part of a com­mu­ni­ty of like-mind­ed peo­ple.

What is your con­tri­bu­tion to Flo­ra Raet­i­ca?
Dur­ing the botany sea­son, I enjoy work­ing on rapid inven­to­ries or indi­vid­ual mis­sions. Dur­ing sum­mer break, I usu­al­ly vis­it remote regions and stay overnight in SAC huts to doc­u­ment the plants in the area. Out­side of the botan­i­cal sea­son, I sup­port the project with my skills as a soft­ware devel­op­er. Among oth­er things, I’ve cre­at­ed dai­ly updat­ed progress maps and lists of species still to be found, which are avail­able on the web­site.

Is there a high­light or a par­tic­u­lar­ly excit­ing dis­cov­ery you’ve come across dur­ing your explo­rations for Flo­ra Raet­i­ca?
A spe­cial high­light for me was con­firm­ing the pres­ence of rock valer­ian (Vale­ri­ana sax­atilis) dur­ing a Flo­ra Raet­i­ca “Dis­cov­er” mis­sion near the Ringel­spitzhütte. This species was last record­ed there in 1954 by Ruben Sut­ter.

Would you like to sup­port Flo­ra Raet­i­ca, too? You can find all the infor­ma­tion you need to get involved here.