The Significance of Kyiv Acclimatization Garden of Academician M.F. Kashchenko for Expanding the Range of Decorative Plants

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the study of the collection of ornamental plants in the Acclimatization Garden of Academician M.F. Kashchenko. While the contribution of Mykola Mykolayovych Kashchenko to expanding the range of medicinal, food and technical plants is widely known, his work with decorative plants has been studied significantly less. We studied archival documents stored in the Institute of Archival Studies of the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine and in the funds of the Museum of History of the M.M. Gryshko National Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. We found information about ornamental plants growing in different periods in the Acclimatization Garden of the Academician M.F. Kashchenko in Kyiv on the “old” site near the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, where M.F. Kashchenko taught zoology until 1921, and on the “new” site on Dorohozhytska street. In our research, we used the memoires of Margarita Kashchenko, the academician’s daughter, chronicles of the work of the Acclimatization Garden in 1923–1927, compiled by K.S. Kalachevska, one of M.F. Kashchenko’s closest assistants, inventory lists of plants of the Acclimatization Garden in 1944 and 1946 and other documents. The outstanding dendrologist M.V. Dubovyk highly appreciated the assortment of decorative plants that grew in the Acclimatization Garden on Dorohozhytska street in early 1930s. We provided data on useful plants (medicinal plants, fruit plants, technical plants) of various life forms (trees, bushes, vines, herbaceous plants), cultivated and tested in the Acclimatization Garden. We indicated that many decorative plants were brought to Kyiv for the first time thanks to the eff orts of M.F. Kashchenko and his few assistants; many of these plants are now widely used in landscaping, with some noticed by garden designers only in recent days.