ИСТОРИЧЕСКИЙ ПУТЬ РАЗВИТИЯ БОТАНИКИ КАК ФУНДАМЕНТА ЛЕСНОГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И НАУКИ В РОССИИ

Abstract

The Department of Botany and Dendrology of the oldest educational forestry institution of Russia, the present St. Petersburg State Forest Technical University named after S.M. Kirov, is celebrating its centenary. At the time of its foundation it was the first specialized department of this kind both in Russia and in the world. In the course of its historical development, the Department of Botany and Dendrology has been formed not only as a large educational and methodological center for botanical, dendrological and general biology training. It has also become a major scientific center providing a wide range of research in the field of biology and ecology of woody plants, their introduction, intraspecific polymorphism, selection, phenological biorhythm, forest science, floristics and taxonomy, anthropogenic dynamics of plant cover and biodiversity conservation of forest ecosystems, bioindication, bioclimatology, forest phenology, and dendrophenological forecasting. It is impossible to list scientific publications of the Department, for only V.N.Sukachov alone was the author of about 500 papers. Under the leadership of V.N.Sukachev, his students and followers, provided research training and supervision for about 50 doctors and candidates of sciences, most of whom specialized in dendrology. Already in itself this fact testifies that creating the first in Russia Department of dendrology, V.N.Sukachev looked far ahead into addressing botanical and dendrological problems of Russia. Only within the last 10-15 years, the staff of the Department published 10 monographs, 2 textbooks, more than 10 teaching manuals. The geography of scientific research is constantly expanding. The scientific school “Dendrology and Biogeocenology named after V.N.Sukachev” has been established and is functioning at the Department.