The Velebit botanical garden is the only mountainous botanical garden in Croatia. It was established in 1967 by the Republic Institute for Protection of Nature in Zagreb and the ex Forest Association in Senj, by suggestion of the botanist Prof. Dr. Fran Kusan. The garden is on Modric Dolac, in the bottom of the north hill-side of Veliki Zavizan (1677 m) on the height of about 1500 m above sea level, it has about 50.0 hectares and it is about 42 km far (if one goes along the road) on the south-east of Senj. About 1 km on the north of the garden, under the peak Vucjak (1645 m) there is a non-stop open and food-provided mountainous hostel "Zavizan" (1594 m) and a meteorological station having the same name.
Basic purposes of the garden and reservation are introduction, popularization and scientific searching of flora and vegetation of sub mountains regions of the Velebit.
The region of the botanical garden and the reservation has been well searched and it characterizes itself with a lot of lithologic, geomorphologic, climatic, pedologic, vegetative, aesthetic and other characteristics of primeval Nature. Among a lot of endemic and rare plants, typical for the Velebit can be mentioned: Degenia velebitica, Sibiraea croatica, Saxifraga prenja, Saxifraga velebitica, Leontopodium alpinum var. krassense, Dianthus bebius, Seseli Malyi, Aubrieta croatica, Edraianthus croaticus, Campanula waldsteiniana, Campanula fenestrellata and etc. which are most important.
In the massive of the Velebit which is registered as a world reservation of the biosphere (UNESCO 1978) and in 1981 it was proclaimed for a park of Nature - the Velebit botanical garden and reservation are especially protected in the category of horticultural monuments, and their wider environment (Zavizan, Balinovac, Zavizanska Kosa) as a special botanical reservation.