We met at the botanical garden this morning for a tour of the Iridarium and surrounding gardens, including the Japanese garden, rock garden, useful plant garden, herbarium, mycology lab, and DNA lab. Our first stop was the Iridarium, which is essentially another word for iris garden. There were of course several Iris, but also several other genera in the family Iridaceae. We were led by Nina, who is a worldwide iris expert! The bed in the photo below is newly created and planted, and you can still see some snow from the night before. Nina has set up an amazing website on the Iridarium and iris where you can take a virtual tour: http://flower-iris.ru/en/
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| Next to the Iridarium were herbaceous plantings, with a view of the main greenhouse |
The herbarium is one of the largest in the world, with over 7 million specimens. We were led into an area with very old cases, and were shown some beautifully artistic specimens like we had never seen before.
On the grounds of the botanical garden is a building that houses the mycology and DNA lab. This building is newly refurbished, so the herbarium cabinets, labs, and equipment are more modern. However, the storage system for fungi was maybe not so modern, but practical, interesting and beautiful too!
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| Fungi stored in old matchboxes |
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| DNA lab cryopreservation |
Next up was the Japanese Garden. This garden is small but traditional, and packed with plants of wild origin. The winds picked up during our tour, and it started to snow. Beautiful...and cold!
Before leaving the botanical garden, we sat down with some of the staff to talk about ways in which we can collaborate. Particularly, we had a great conversation with the curator of the useful plant garden. This garden, also known as an apothecary garden, was the original site and purpose of the garden (like most botanical gardens at the time). She was very eager to provide assistance to us in developing our own garden. This is an exciting prospect as her garden contains over 70% wild source plants!
After tours at the botanical garden, we traveled to the St. Petersburg State Forestry-Technical Academy. This higher education institution was founded in 1803 by the decree of Alexander the First. There are several areas of specialization, including forest science, landscape design, computer systems and technologies, woodprocessing, forest engineering, chemical technology and biotechnology, economics, and so on. This school is where several staff at the botanical garden were trained. Our first stop were the surrounding gardens and forest, which support the training programs. There were several students working in the gardens while we were there.
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| Forest area, with Larix sp. in background |
We had lunch, then went on a tour of the museum, which also supports the student's learning. On display here were animals, plants, and insects of Russia. There was also a significant area devoted to plant pests and their effects on plants. Very interesting stuff.
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| The butterfly exhibit |
After our tours at the school, we headed back to the hotel for a quick rest before dinner. It has been a whirlwind of a trip, and things are winding down. Tomorrow (Saturday) we have some free time to explore the city, but have to try and get to bed early for a 3:30 am departure from the hotel. It has been a fabulous trip, with so many inpiring tours, personal connections, and new collaborations. And we are very excited to host Nina, Alexandra, Svetlana, and Ana next week in St. Louis!
To our hosts we say spasibo and do svidaniya!
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