Croatian Botanical Society

Peer review instructions

The editorial believe that peer review is the foundation for safeguarding the quality and integrity of scientific and scholarly research. 

All scientific contributions go through two blind reviews. 

Potential reviewers:

  1. receive an invitation by email with a summary of not authorized manuscripts and a request to conduct a review. The reviewer based on the summary estimates that there is an appropriate reviewer, i. e. if it fits his professional profile and that there is no conflict of interest
  2. if accept review, reviewers receive mail with formal peer review form and not authorized manuscript with accompanying materials (if any)
  3. make review
  4. according to the reviewer opinions editorial decide on the further direction of processing the received manuscripts
  5. on the request of the reviewer, the editorial issued reviewers’ confirmation on conducted review procedures

The reviewers conducted a review in accordance with the best practices of peer review (see Best Practice Guidelines on Publishing Ethics A Publisher’s Perspective Second Edition) adhering to the following main principles:

  1. promptly respond to the call of the editorial board, not to prolong the editorial process
  2. treats the manuscript as confidential material that does not reproduce, publish or distribute
  3. when commenting, make sure that remarks stay within the scope of the paper and don’t veer off subject. In case of ambiguity communicates with the editorial board
  4. provides constructive comments with the sole aim of the author or authors can improve their work, even if it is not accepted for publication
  5. providing enough personal time for quality review, which sometimes can be challenging
  6. numbered your comments to facilitate of subsequent processing and correspondence with the author or authors
  7. focuses on scientific content, and on other manuscript aspects is tolerant (quality of language, grammar, etc. – part of the work of the editorial board)
  8. particularly focuses on the conclusions that clearly define the scientific contribution of the manuscript
  9. checks the quality of the methods used, sample size, scope, etc., in order to ensure verification or repetition of the results

Instructions to authors

When submitting the manuscript, authors must indicate the manuscript category.

Review process

  1. Original scientific papers and short communications undergo at least two independent reviews by domestic and international experts in the relevant field.
  2. Professional papers undergo one or two independent reviews by domestic and/or international reviewers.

The Editorial Team evaluates if submitted manuscript will be 1/ accepted, 2/ accepted with minor changes, 3/ accepted with major changes or 4/ not accepted for publication. The Editorial Team reserves the right to change the manuscript category following the peer review.

Preparation of the manuscript:

Original scientific paper should be organized in following sections: (1) title, (2) full name(s) and surname(s) of all author(s) (with the corresponding author indicated by an asterisk, *), (3) address(es) and institutional affiliation(s) of the author(s), if an author has no institutional affiliation, the author’s personal contact address should be provided (4) e-mail address of the corresponding author, (5) abstract, (6) keywords (up to five, in alphabetical order), (7) introduction, (8) materials and methods, (9) results, (10) discussion (results and discussion may be combined into one section if appropriate), (11) conclusion (optional), (12) literature, (13) appendices (where necessary).

Short communication should be organized in following sections: (1) title, (2) full name(s) and surname(s) of all author(s) (with the corresponding author indicated by an asterisk, *), (3) address(es) and institutional affiliation(s) of the author(s), if an author has no institutional affiliation, the author’s personal contact address should be provided, (4) e-mail address of the author for correspondence, (5) abstract, (6) keywords (up to five, in alphabetical order), (7) main text (division into appropriate sections is acceptable), (8) literature, (9) appendices (where necessary).

Professional paper should be organized in following sections: (1) title, (2) full name(s) and surname(s) of all author(s) (with the corresponding author indicated by an asterisk, *), (3) address(es) and institutional affiliation(s) of the author(s), if an author has no institutional affiliation, the author’s personal contact address should be provided ,(4) e-mail address of the author for correspondence, (5) abstract, (6) keywords (up to five, in alphabetical order), (7) main text (division into appropriate sections is acceptable), (8) literature, (9) appendices (where necessary)

Review paper should be organized in following sections: (1) title, (2) full name(s) and surname(s) of all author(s) (with the corresponding author indicated by an asterisk, *), (3) address(es) and institutional affiliation(s) of the author(s), if an author has no institutional affiliation, the author’s personal contact address should be provided, (4) e-mail address of the author for correspondence, (5) abstract, (6) keywords (up to five, in alphabetical order), (7) text of the manuscript (with division in appropriate subchapters depending on the type of communication), (8) literature, (9) appendices (where necessary).

News, Brief Reports, In Memoriam, Obituary, Anniversaries, Reminiscences, Book Reviews, and Recommendations should be organized in following chapters: (1) title, (2) full name(s) and surname(s) of all author(s) (with the corresponding author indicated by an asterisk, *), (3) address(es) and institutional affiliation(s) of the author(s), if an author has no institutional affiliation, the author’s personal contact address should be provided, (4) e-mail address of the author for correspondence, (5) the main text of the manuscript, with a recommendation that these submissions should preferably be written in Croatian.

Contributions to short communication New findings of rare and under-recorded vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens, fungi and algae in Croatia and neighboring countries should be organized into following sections: (1) scientific name of the taxon, (2) full name(s) of the author(s) with initials in parentheses, (3) name of the locality with WGS84 coordinates in decimal degrees and date of collection, followed by the initials of the researcher who recorded the taxon at that locality, (4) cited herbarium specimens stored in official collections (recommended), (5) descriptive part of no more than 200 words, (6) at least one photo of the taxon, and (7) references that follow the journal’s standard style. The first author of short communication will be chosen from the first authors of the records and will be responsible for the preparation of the manuscript (“column editor“). 

General instructions:

    1. manuscripts may be written in Croatian or in English;
    2. manuscripts written in Croatian, must contain the title, abstract, keywords, and titles of figures, tables and appendices in English;
    3. manuscripts written in English, must contain the title, abstract, keywords, and titles of figures, tables and appendices in Croatian;
    4. keywords: the maximum number of keywords is, words included in the title should not repeat among the keywords, keywords are listed alphabetically in the language in which the paper is written, in the second language, their order should not be changed after translation;
    5. the manuscripts, regardless of the original language, must be written clearly, with correct grammar and style. The editorial office reserves the right to return a manuscript even before formal peer review if this criterion is not met;
    6. all supplementary materials (tables, figures) should be embedded within the text, but also submitted as separate files;
    7. the use of images, drawings, or other graphical materials is not permitted without proper attribution to the author or source, or if it violates copyright;
    8. the author(s) must submit the text and numbered supplementary materials (tables, figures, and other attachments) electronically to the editorial office via email: hbod.glasnik@gmail.com

Technical instructions:

  • the text of all manuscripts must be written in MS Word, using Arial font, size 10, without footnotes, and with single line spacing, using A4 format;
  • latin names of plant families, genera and species must be written in italic;
  • taxonomic nomenclature should follow FCD or other relevant valid nomenclature sources (EuroMedPlantbase, Tropicos, POWO), authors abbreviations should follow the international IPNI standard,  and herbaria acronym IH;
  • graphical contributions (figures, photographs, drawings, graphs and other) should be submitted in JPG, GIF, or TIF format, with a minimum resolution of 200 dpi;
  • multiple images that are part of a single figure plate should be labeled additionally with A, B, C, etc.;
  • Figures in the text should be referenced as follows: Fig. 1, 2; Fig. 1–3; Fig. 1A,B; Fig. 3B–D;
  • Example of a figure caption:

English: Figure 20. Pseudocampylium radicale: A – locality, B – leaf (photos by M. Bučar).

Croatian: Slika 20. Pseudocampylium radicale: A – lokalitet, B – listić (fotografija M. Bučar).

  • tables should be submitted in xls format (MS Excel);
  • tables in the text should be cited as follows: Tab. 1; Tab. 1, 3; Tab. 1–4;
  • supplementary files must be unambiguously named;
  • all measurement units must follow the SI system.
  • titles of publications, such as journals, books, and monographs, should be written in italics in the text.
  • An en dash (–) should be used to indicate ranges; ranges of years, dates, or dimensions should be written with a space before and after the dash (e.g., 1880 – 1890, 5 – 10 cm, 12 June – 15 June), whereas page ranges in bibliographic references should be written without spaces (e.g., 147–150, 23–35).
  • dates in the text and figure captions should follow this format: English: 13 January 2026; Croatian: 13. siječnja 2026.

Citation of literature:

Literature citation in the manuscript text should be given as follows:

  • for a single reference: (Horvat 1957, POWO 2025)
  • for multiple references by different authors, citations should be arranged chronologically: (Lovašen-Eberhardt 1988, Liber et al. 2000, Franjić & Škvorc 2010, POWO 2025)

All works cited in the text must also be listed in the reference list in the section References. Works “in press” should be included only if they have been formally accepted for publication. In the References section, references should be arranged alphabetically (by the names of the authors) and chronologically (based on publication year). More than one work by the same author in the same year should be distinguished by adding a, b, c, etc., after the year of publication (Horvat 1945a,b).

Names of journals, periodicals, series, publishers, symposia, congresses, and similar sources should not be abbreviated; they must be written in full, in their original language.

Use the following formats for Reference list style:

Journal articles:

Mereďa, P., Hodálová, I., Kučera, J., Zozomová-Lihová, J., Letz, D. R., Slovák, M. (2011): Genetic and morphological variation in Viola suavis s.l. (Violaceae) in the western Balkan Peninsula: two endemic subspecies revealed. Systematics and Biodiversity 9(3): 211–231. doi: 10.1080/14772000.2011.603903

Hodač, L., Karbstein, K., Tomasello, S., Wäldchen, J., Bradican, J. P., Hörandl, E. (2023): Geometric Morphometric Versus Genomic Patterns in a Large Polyploid Plant Species Complex. Biology 12(3), 418. doi: 10.3390/biology12030418

  • when citing journals, the DOI of an article should be provided if available;
  • if a journal volume contains articles without page numbers but with a unique article number, the article number should follow the volume number, separated by a comma.

Books:

Simpson, M. G. (2006): Plant systematics. Elsevier, London.

Franjić, J., Škvorc, Ž. (2010): Šumsko drveće i grmlje Hrvatske. Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Šumarski fakultet, Zagreb.

Internet sources:

Nikolić, T., Bogdanović, S., Vuković, N., Šegota, V. (eds.) (2025): Flora Croatica Database. Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb. http://hirc.botanic.hr/fcd (accessed 23 January 2025).

POWO (2025): Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. https://powo.science.kew.org/ (accessed September 2025).

Chapter in journal:

Lovašen-Eberhardt, Ž. (2000): Campanula L. In: Nikolić, T. (ed.): Flora Croatica. Index florae Croaticae, Pars 3, Natura Croatica 9, Suppl. 1: 64–67.

Book chapter:

Heywood, V. H. (1968): Fumana (Dunal) Spach. In: Tutin, T. G., Heywood, V. H., Burges, N. A., Moore, D. M., Valentine, D. H., Walters, S. M., Webb, D. A. (eds.): Flora Europaea 2. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 291–292.

Abstract in a conference/symposium proceedings:

Dolina, K., Jasprica, N. (2025): Plant communities on the small island in the southern Croatia. In: Ljubešić, Z., Sandev, D., Koletić, N. (eds.): 8th Croatian Botanical Symposium with International Participation: Book of Abstracts. Croatian Botanical Society, Zagreb, 43.

Thesis:

Štefoković, V. (2004): Vegetacijska sukcesija na Đurđevačkim pijescima. Graduate thesis. Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb.