Assortment of woody plants used in Tomsk landscape gardening

This article presents the results of long-term studies of woody plants species diversity used for Tomsk landscape gardening. The tendencies of the used assortment change are analyzed from 2000 to 2013. The data on occurrence, distribution and types of planting on landscape gardening objects of 135 species, forms and sorts of woody plants are presented. The taxonomical and biomorphological composition, natural and artificial ranges and their practical value are studied. The peculiarities of Tomsk landscape gardening have been revealed. They are as follows: sufficiently broad assortment; a great number of native species; the use of plants giving edible kinds of fruit in landscape gardening of schools and areas located near houses; several instances of the use of woody climbers; rare application of ornamentalforms and sorts, growing and planting birches without dividing them into species, a decrease in balsam poplar plantations because of cutting down old trees. Some ways of broadening the available woody plants assortment in Tomsk landscape gardening are shown in the article. The area of Tomsk region presents 135 species, forms and sorts of woody plants used in landscape gardening. The revealed species and sorts belong to 57 genera and 27families. A great number of taxa have been found in Rosaceae family (36 species and 6 forms), Salicaceae family (13 and 8), a smaller part - in Oleaceae family (7 and 3), Pinaceae family (6 and 1), Betulaceae family (6 and 1), Berberidaceae family (3 and 2), Caprifoliaceae family (5), Aceraceae family (4 and 1), Grossulariaceae family (5), Fabaceae family (4), Cupressaceae family (2 and 2), Cornaceae family (1 and 3), more than a half (13 families) is presented by 1-3 taxa. Among the plants registered in Tomsk landscape gardening objects, shrubs are dominant (60 species and 18 forms and sorts, 57.8%), trees comprise 37% (42 species and 8 sorts), semishrubs are presented by 5 species (3.7%), lianas comprise 1 species and 1 sort (1.5%). When analyzing the natural ranges of plants, the following regularities with regard to natural laws were revealed: Eurasian species are the most numerous (37 or 27.4%), Asian species (16 or 13.85%), North American species (15 or 11.1%), Far Eastern species (13 or 9.63%) and European species (11 or 8.15%) are less numerous. 28 forms and sorts (20.7%) are found only in culture, so they refer to the group with an artificial range type. Apart from ornamental features, the species revealed are interesting from the practical point of view. The groups of honey-bearing plants (79 species), medicinal plants (71 species) and technical plants (66 species) are numerous. A smaller part consists of food (39 species) and fodder plants - 31 species.

Keywords

Authors

References