Included in the state register of botanical collections of the Republic of Belarus (certificate No. 18, issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection of the Republic of Belarus on July 25, 2005). Curator of the collection - Senior Researcher Mikhail Nikolaevich Rudevich.
As of January 1, 2016, the dendrological collection contains 2,444 samples belonging to 1476 species and intraspecific taxa, including: 1419 species from 174 genera, from 62 families.
For almost 85 years of the Central Botanical Garden's existence, several generations of dendrologists have carried out a huge amount of work on attracting - introducing - an extensive list of new woody plants for Belarus from various floristic regions of the Earth. The experience accumulated over this time in maintaining such plants in the Garden's collection funds and their reproduction provides versatile scientifically substantiated prerequisites for their use in various sectors of the national economy and enrichment of the republic's dendroflora. In recent decades, new opportunities for green construction in the republic have been revealed by the wide involvement of varietal material of ornamental woody plants in the introduction process.
The collection of woody plants began to form in the Garden almost from the moment of its foundation. The predominant part of the dendrological collection of the Centralized Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus is concentrated within its territorial and thematic division – the arboretum.
The northern border of the arboretum is the silver maple alley, the western border is the Canadian poplar alley, the eastern border is the alley of crab apple trees, the southern borders of the arboretum and the Garden coincide. Territorially, the arboretum is divided into 7 sectors by alleys of native and introduced tree species radiating from the central parterre.
Structurally, the arboretum is formed according to the geographical principle, according to which woody plants, when planted in a permanent place, are placed in separate geographical sectors in accordance with their geographical origin. This decision was made initially, back when it was organized. In most cases, the boundaries of the territorial and geographic sectors coincide.
In the process of forming the territory and collections of the Garden and the arboretum, various transformations were carried out. The number, location, size and names of the geographic parts of the woody plant collection changed.
Currently, the arboretum occupies about 46 hectares and consists of six geographic sectors: “Belarus”, “Europe and Siberia” (with a trend towards the gradual allocation of two independent sectors - “Europe” and “North-Eastern and Northern Asia (Siberia)”), “Eastern Asia” (formerly “Far East Caucasus and Eastern Asia”), “Caucasus” (formerly “Crimea and the Caucasus”), “Western and Central Asia” (formerly “Central Asia”), “North America”, where representatives of the corresponding floras are exhibited.
The primary territorial unit of the arboretum is the plot. The plots are of arbitrary shape and are separated from each other by pedestrian paths or trails, each of them has a permanent number.
To ensure good visibility of the collection exhibits and the integrity of the perception of the landscape appearance of the created plant landscapes, the planting of plants was carried out taking into account their habitus and size.
At the initial stages of the formation of the Garden's dendrological collection, a mass attraction of seeds and plants from various domestic and foreign plant-growing centers was undertaken. In the first years, this process developed somewhat spontaneously. Subsequently, the attraction of dendroexotics began to be carried out more purposefully - on the basis of introduction plans and in accordance with the method of generic complexes proposed by F.N. Rusanov. These theoretical and practical approaches are preserved to the present day, if possible.
Work on attracting seed and planting material, growing it, planting it in permanent places and caring for it has always been carried out by competent specialists of the Garden's dendrological division, under the guidance of highly qualified scientific staff, including famous botanists and dendrologists of the republic. Over the past historical period, in connection with various structural changes in the Academy, the status and name of the Garden's dendrological division have repeatedly changed ("department of woody plants", "laboratory of woody plants", "laboratory of woody plant introduction", "department of woody plant introduction", etc.), but, despite this, its team has always maintained its original purposefulness and continuity of ideas.
The majority of plants in the collections are grown from seeds obtained through exchange for delectuses. This explains why most species are represented by 1-2 specimens, a few samples. Some of the plants arrived as seedlings and cuttings from botanical gardens and other botanical institutions in the near and far abroad. Expeditionary collection of source material for the introduction of woody plants in their natural habitats began to be practiced only in the early 80s of the 20th century.
The construction of the Central Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus began in 1932 on an area that at that time was 106 hectares (currently 93 hectares). The layout of the Garden was carried out in accordance with the draft zoning scheme of its territory, developed by Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, Professor Stepan Pavlovich Melnik. It provided for the allocation of a central parterre and the division of the entire allocated area into sectors, which were delimited by radially diverging alleys and a bypass snail-shaped alley. A significant part of the sectors in the south-eastern part of the Garden was allocated for the formation of a dendrological collection. The attraction of introduced species and scientific support for the work on creating the collection was carried out by researchers and specialists of the dendrology department created in 1933 in the Centralized Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. From the moment of its creation until 1938, it was headed by the former director of the Centralized Botanical Garden S.P. Melnik.
The laying of the parterre and alleys began as early as 1932, and the active filling of the botanical and geographical sectors (North America, the Far East, Europe and Central Asia) - mainly since 1936. In the late 1930s, A. L. Novikov developed the first plan for the introduction of woody plants based on literary data and taking into account the existing experience of their introduction to Belarus and adjacent regions. In accordance with it, 79 species of conifers and 907 species of deciduous woody plants were recommended for testing in open ground.
In 1940, the implementation of the general project for the reconstruction of the Garden was launched, developed by specialists from the V. L. Komarov Botanical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, taking into account the soil features and relief of its territory. According to it, the creation of mass tree plantings was envisaged on the territory of the geographic (13.9 hectares), forest park (42 hectares) and landscape (8 hectares) zones. In the geographical zone, the sectors of floras of East Asia and the Far East, North America, Europe and Siberia, the BSSR, Crimea and the Caucasus, and Central Asia were distinguished.
In the 1930s-50s, in the dendrology department, along with the already famous scientists of that time - professors S.P. Melnik, M.P. Tomin, M.G. Vasilkov, and Z.P. Proskuryakov, N.D. Nesterovich, A.P. Pidoplichko, A.I. Chernenkov, and others began their scientific work. During this period, the department staff, along with the construction of the garden, carried out extensive research work in the field of plant introduction, the study of local flora and vegetation, ornamental gardening, and pomology. Work on the creation of the Garden's dendrological collection and research in the field of woody plant introduction from 1939 and until 1957 was headed by N.D. Nesterovich, who was deservedly elected an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR for his contribution to botanical science.
From 1957 to 1989, the department, and later the laboratory of woody plant introduction, was headed by Doctor of Biological Sciences N.V. Shkutko.
Since 1989, the laboratory of woody plant introduction has been headed by I.M. Garanovich, PhD in Biology. Currently, the laboratory's introduction work is carried out by the following researchers and specialists: N.V. Makedonskaya, T.V. Shpitalnaya, M.N. Rudevich, V.G. Grinkevich.
Mass plantings of introduced and local woody plants were carried out not only on the territory of the Central Botanical Garden's arboretum, but also in its landscape park. The distribution of the main areas used in the Garden for exhibiting representatives of the arboretum collection is shown in Figures 1 and 2. As can be seen from the diagrams, the Belarusian flora sector has the largest area - 30.4 hectares or 66% of the total area of the geographic sectors. This is due to the fact that its expositions cover almost the entire forest park part, where some plant species are presented not as individual specimens, but in groups and even arrays. If we exclude this part of the arboretum from consideration, then among the remaining geographical sectors, the floras of North America (7.2 ha, 47%) and East Asia (4.6 ha, 30%) are exhibited in the largest areas. The smallest area is occupied by the sector where the flora of the Caucasus is presented (0.5 ha, 3%). The Garden's collection presents various life forms of plants: trees, shrubs, subshrubs, dwarf shrubs and vines. The predominant life forms are shrubs (47.4%) and trees (39.7%). The participation of plants capable of manifesting themselves as both trees and shrubs is significant (8.2%). The share of vines is small (3.5%), and that of subshrubs and shrubs is insignificant (1.1 and 0.2%, respectively).
The majority of woody plants introduced to the Central Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus are naturally distributed in the Holarctic region, including Europe, Asia, and North America. The largest number of exotics were introduced from the countries of East and Central Asia, which are distinguished by the extraordinary richness of dendroflora. In terms of the number of exhibited taxa, the East Asian sector represents 38% of the entire collection. The dendroflora of North America is represented by a slightly smaller number of woody plant species - 28%, and even smaller - Europe - 20%. The share of plants from other geographic zones in the dendrological collection is small and amounts to 14% in total. The exposition of Belarus reflects the main plant communities of the republic's forests. They present 48 species of woody plants, including 21 species of trees, 21 species of shrubs and 7 species of subshrubs and dwarf shrubs.
Analysis of the saturation of the Garden's dendrological collection by species in terms of families. Shows that the leading place is occupied by the Rosaceae family (475 species or 32%). Less representative are the families Caprifoliaceae (99 species or 7%), Betulaceae (85 species or 6%) and Hydrangeaceae (72 species or 5%). Among the less significant families are: Berberidaceae, Pinaceae, Ericaceae, Oleaceae and Fabaceae (67, 60, 59, 58 and 56 species or 4%), Salicaceae, Grossulariaceae and Aceraceae (47, 42 and 39 species or 3%), Cupressaceae, Celastraceae, Cornaceae and Fagaceae (30, 26, 23 and 23 species or 2%). Rhamnaceae and Tiliaceae each account for 1% (22 species) of the dendrological collection. The total participation of the remaining families, covering 195 original species, is 8%. These families are usually represented by fewer than 13 species, and 17 families in the dendrological collection of the Garden are represented by only one species.
The dendrological collection of the Central Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, created over several decades, serves as a basis for extensive ecological and biological studies of introduced woody plants: studying their winter hardiness, seasonal development rhythms, fruiting biology, ornamentality, attitude to pests and diseases, and other economic qualities. Long-term studies allow us to assess the adaptive capabilities of introduced plants to local soil and climatic conditions, the prospects for introducing them into culture and implementing them in the practice of green building. In this regard, the introduced woody plants growing in the Garden's collection are an invaluable source of initial seed and vegetative material for the propagation of promising species.
The extensive gene pool of the world flora available in the dendrological collection allows biologists to solve a variety of scientific and applied problems of a wide profile.
The main task remains the preservation of cultivated woody plants and the attraction of new interesting species.
The main works of the recent period, in which the collection funds are covered, are:
