Monday, December 28, 2015

Botanical Gardens in Uzbekistan

The Botanical Garden - Nukus
Garden Name: The Botanical Garden, Uzbek Academy of Sciences Founded: 1959 Address: Complex Institute of Natural Sciences, Karakalpakaya Branch, 742004 Nukus. Status: State Herbarium. Collections: Salix, Calligonum, Halimodendron, fruit, berries, ornamentals and herbaceous plants. No. of taxa: 291

The University Botanical Garden - Samarkand
Garden Name: The University Botanical Garden Founded: 1970  Address: 9 Arutunova St., 703008 Samarkand. Status: State Herbarium: Collections: Trees and shrubs, fruit trees. No. of taxa: 194

National University Botanical Gardens - Tashkent
Garden Name:  National University of Uzbekistan Botanical Garden - Tashkent Founded: 1960 Status: State Herbarium. Collections: Rosarium, ornamental, medicinal, vineyard, pomology garden. No. of taxa: 455

Botanic Garden of the Academy of Sciences in Tashkent
Garden Name: Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences Botanic Garden Founded: 1953 Address: Dshacan Abidovoi Street 232, 700053 Tashkent Status: State Herbarium: Collections: Hybrid Hibiscus, Crataegus, Rosa, Berberis, Cotoneaster, Lonicera, Malus, Acer, Spiraea, Philadelphus, Deutzia, Pinus, Tulipa, Eremurus. Middle Asian flora. No. of taxa: 6,000

Introduction: Botanical Gardens of Academy of Sciences is the oldest botanical gardens in Uzbekistan founded in 1920. Laying out and building of the Botanical Gardens on its present site began in 1950 under the guidance of Academician F.N.Rusanov. Today the Botanical Gardens functions as a uniform organisation jointly with Institute of Flora and Fauna Genofond (Gene Pool).

It has a total area of the Botanical Gardens covers 66 hectares, it is located in the northeast part of Tashkent.  The arboretum of the garden occupies 40 hectares and consists of exhibitions dendroflora of East Asia, North America, Central Asia, the Far East, Europe, Crimea and the Caucasus. The collection contains more than 6000 species, forms, varieties and species of trees, shrubs, dwarf shrubs, vines, grasses and aquatic plants. 

Besides, there are planting sites for medicinal herbs, biological, regular, quarantine, experimental-industrial sites, nurseries, and a glass-grown-hothouse complex. In hothouses and tropical orchard-houses there are grown over 800 types, forms and varieties of tropical and subtropical plants. There is also a special nursery for medicinal herbs. Researching Central Asian medicinal plants, most of which have not been properly evaluated, is an area of particular interest to the scientists at the Botanical Institute.

In the eleventh century, Al-Biruni and Avicenna, two great scholars born in present-day Uzbekistan, made important contributions to the science of medicinal plants. Al-Biruni conceived a new field of science concerning medicinal herbs, and classified and described numerous plant species. In 1025, Avicenna published The Canon of Medicine, in which he described the herbs that were most widely researched and used in medical practice then. Today, many of those plants are still used in medicine in Central Asia.

Herbarium: The central herbarium (collection of preserved plant specimens) has a large and unique collection (the only one in Central Asia). It consists of more than one million herbarium sheets covering 172 plant species families. The herbarium consists of four sections: 1) Central Asian herbarium of about 100 thousand sheets in volume; 2) General herbarium of about 100 thousand sheets in volume; 3) Typical (authentic) herbarium of about 2000 sheets in volume; and 4) Exchange collection and herborised materials collected for issuing, is presented by 1400 plant species.

The Palaeobotanical collection:  includes of more than 6000 samples and is presented by imprints of vegetative organs of almost all types of plants, fossilized wood or petrified wood, spores and pollen.


Guides: Qualified guides regularly lead excursions in the Botanical garden. The Botanical Gardens is a museum in the open air, national property and pride of the Republic and science of Uzbekistan.

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