BOTANICAL RESEARCHES NEED FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

Azg/am
27 July 2004

Yerevan Botanical Garden is engaged in studying the Armenian flora, as
well as preserving and elaborating thousand of plant-sorts. At
present, the scientific researches are in a very bad state in the
botanical garden that has a history of 70 years. Lack of financial
assistance hinders the scientific researches.

The garden was greatly damaged during the early 90s, when many of the
rare and valuable plants died or were frozen because of the lack of
the materials needed. During the cold winters the garden was deprived
of many of the trees as most of the thick ones were just cut. At the
same time during the same years the construction of the ecological
center that is unique in the region was initiated in the garden. Many
rare species belonging to the Armenian naturewere gathered and
elaborated thanks to a number of devoted people. These speciesare
being preserved in the green house of the garden. The construction of
the green house began in the Soviet times, but during the years of
independencethe garden received no financial support and the
construction-works were stopped. But thanks to the efforts of a
number of scientific officers the giant greenhouse ‘s construction was
completed. Afterwards, 7 artificial landscapes peculiar to the
Armenian nature, i.e. prairie, highland prairie, arboretum, rocky,
desert and watery-mash. About 450 sorts of wild plants grow in this
micro-landscapes that secures constant blossoming of the
flora. Endemic species that are peculiar to only some of the Armenian
regions grow here. Many of such species are of the verge of being
annihilated as they are brutally picked up by some irresponsible
citizens and flower-sellers during their blooming period. Buttheir
samples are preserved and elaborated in the ecological center that has
popular scientific orientation. This is a unique ecological museum,
where one can get familiarized to the Armenian nature in an hour.

The center has many problems today, as it’s hard to have such a giant
greenhouse with no financial support. The scientists have many
programs andprojects that can’t be realized because of the lack of
financial sources. One can only hope that the time will come when the
Armenian budget will allocate financial sources for the botanical
researches.

By Ani Chetimian, student at Yerevan State Linguistic University after
Valery Brusov