Botanical Garden displays a unique collection

The peak of pilgrimage season to the Hryshko National Botanical Garden (commonly known as “the new garden”), as a rule, falls on May, when hectares of blossoming lilacs serve as its calling card. Meanwhile, for the fifth successive winter one of the pavilions of the garden has been turned into a tropical island. The other day the botanical garden employees put on display one of Europe’s best collections of tropical and subtropical plants.

The pride and joy of the botanical garden, the collection of 3,022 specimens, including 600 different species, genera, and sorts of orchids, was founded in the post-war period. The first collection specimens, azaleas, brought here from Germany, have lasted to this day. The second wave of its formation began in the early 1970s. Then every three to four years, expeditions visited tropical regions of the planet, namely Brazil, Southeast Asia, Thailand, Vietnam, Madagascar, Africa, and the Seychelles. The collection is valuable because two- thirds of its plant specimens came from their natural habitat. The most recent trip to replenish the collection stock was made in 2001 as part of an expedition to the so-called South Annam floral province. The expedition resulted in the signing of a memorandum on cooperation in the sphere of protection of rare tropical plants with Vietnamese scientists of the Ho Chi Minh Tropical Biology Institute. In addition to scientific exchange, Ukrainian scientists will grow endangered species of orchids and return rare flowers to nature thousands of miles away from Vietnam.

In principle, exotic tropical plants could compete with or even become an alternative to the gorgeous, though now common, lilac shrubs, even in May. However, though many greenhouses are over thirty years old, it is anyone’s guess when the new ones will be completed. The old greenhouses cannot be open to visitors the whole year round, because they are run-down. Also, too many specimens are densely clustered on limited land plots.

A major challenge of keeping the fancy inhabitants of the tropics is providing the required temperature conditions. To all appearances, scientists seem to cope with this problem. In all probability, the status of the collection, decreed a part of the national heritage by the government, helps them keep up. However, the issue of funding is as pressing as ever, with the upkeep of tropical plants costing a UAH 500,000 each year.

However, while azaleas, camellias, palm-trees, codiaeums, rubber plants, and asparaguses feel comfortable and warm, their relations in the scientific laboratory are having a hard time. The green friends of man suffer there for a noble purpose, namely for the sake of science. Placed in a special device, clinostat, plants are tested under conditions of weightlessness, as part of international programs of NASA and the Ukrainian Scientific and Technical Center. Judging from what we have seen and according to biologist Natalia Zayimenko, plants grow and, accordingly, age faster. Their phosphate and nitrogen metabolism is inhibited, many of them suffer from dehydration, although each specimen behaves differently. For example, some orchids manage quite well, though they do not blossom. There are plants in the botanical garden which had been kept in space for 120 days and are currently in quite good shape, according to Dr. Zayimenko. Similar tests are of paramount practical importance. They range from their esthetic function on board the spacecraft, since live organisms in space have a tranquilizing effect, to the idea of using plants as biofilters. There is also a gastronomic aspect. Astronauts from the last Mir spacecraft could indulge in salad and mustard in space.

Space aside, since trade in exotic tropical plants has been on the rise as of late across the country, The Day ’s correspondent asked the expert about the conditions of their upkeep. In short, it is possible to use exotic plants to decorate interiors, but relatively few species are suitable, and for some a set of special technical appliances is required. For example, while creating adequate conditions for miniature orchids is not much trouble, keeping bigger ones at home is more problematic. When blossoming, they are used to daily temperature drops of ten to fifteen degrees. In the wintertime, though, the ambient temperature must not exceed twelve degrees above zero, which is too low for the other inhabitants of the apartment.

According to Liudmyla Buyun, senior scientist of the department of tropical and subtropical plants, problems connected with keeping many sorts of plants stem from allocation of expense. Although plants are imported, there is a shortage of funds to ensure their adequate upkeep.

Botanical garden employees are planning to set up an authoritative counseling service for amateur florists. For the time being, free advice is available only as part of exhibitions held by the botanical garden.