Ex situ protection of Eastern European orchids

In nature the number of orchids is sharply declining due to habitat disturbance, collecting in bouquets and digging up of plants for replanting into culture. Taking into account these factors, it is important to conserve the orchid gene pool ex situ. The Main Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been actively involved in solving this problem for several decades now and has accumulated quite a lot of experience in growing orchids. The main purpose of the study is to summarize the experience of long-term introduction of Eastern European orchids into the MBG RAS for the period from 1947 to 2024. In this regard, it was necessary to solve the following tasks: to evaluate the number of tested samples, the duration of their cultivation, the completeness of development cycle and the resistance of Eastern European orchids in culture. The experience of long-term introduction of 18 species of the Orchidaceae family on the botanical and geographical exposition of Eastern Europe of the Main Botanical Garden of the RAS is described in the article. The largest share (68%) of samples was brought from natural habitats of the Moscow region. The maximum number of samples tested was to Cypripedium calceolus. Its resistant samples went through a full development cycle every year and existed for more than 10 years. The duration of the introduction testing of 4 samples of other species reached more than 20 years: Dactylorhiza fuchsii, Listera ovata, Neottia nidusavis, Orchis tridentata. 13 species (72%) turned out to be weakly resistant or unsteady under the conditions of the MBG RAS. Species of the genus Orchis are weakly resistant in cultivation, and species of the genus Dactylorhiza differ in resistance: D. fuchsii – resistant, D. incarnata and D. traunsteineri – weakly resistant, D. baltica – unstable. Introduction population of D. fuchsii has been created from seedlings obtained culture in vitro. There are currently 4 species grown in the collection: Cypripedium macranthon, C. × ventricosum, Epipactis helleborine and Neottia nidus-avis.

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