KOMAROV BOTANICAL INSTITUTE

Russian Botanichesky Institut Imena Komarova, major botanical research centre in St. Petersburg, Russia. The 22-hectare (54-acre) garden has about 6,700 species of plants, many of which were obtained through a series of plant-collecting expeditions sent to all parts of the world. Its most important collections include those featuring cycads, palms, rhododendrons, mangroves, lilies, tulips, and lianas. The garden has 27 greenhouses; 22 are for display, and five are for service functions. It also has a sizable arboretum. The botanical garden was founded in 1715 by Peter the Great as a source of medicinal plants for his army, but since that time it has been expanded into an important centre of botanical studies with a large library and an herbarium consisting of more than five million reference specimens, among which are numerous collections of special importance from Russia and parts of Central Asia. The Komarov Botanical Institute, created by the union of the botanical garden and the city's botanical museum in 1931, published a monumental 30-volume study on the flora of the Soviet Union. The institute has produced several other important publications, including one on the flora of arctic regions of Russia.