Architects: Beijing Tsinghua Urban Planning & Design Institute, Beijing, China PRC.
Client: Etuoke Banner District Planning Bureau, Erdos, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China PRC.
Photographers: Beijing Tsinghua Urban Planning & Design Institute
Project Description
The Botanic Garden of Mongolia was established in eastern Ulaanbaatar in the 1970's in order to conserve the native and rare flora of Mongolia and provide economically useful plant species for agriculture, forestry and horticulture. It is part of the Institute of Botany of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. Currently it occupies 32 ha with ornamental trees, shrubs, herbs and bulbs (Paeonia and Iris) and greenhouses. An arboretum was established in the north-east of Ulaanbaatar in the 1980's and has since cultivated about 800 species of native trees and about 50,000 other plants.
Wild collection of 133 species of plants is legally prohibited and 128 higher and lower species are registered in the Red Book of Mongolia (Shiirevdamba, 1997), which supports their conservation. Over 20 endangered plants are now in cultivation. Present work focuses on:
1. Research into the ecology and infraspecific variation, cultivation, threats, conservation and breeding of native ornamental and useful shrubs for greenhouse and outside cultivation.
2. Maintaining living collections, ex situ and in situ conservation, propagation of rare and endangered native taxa to provide a living plant and in vitro gene bank.
3. Detailed research into the biological activity of the forms selected for cultivation (e.g. Mongolian medicinal plants) in relation to the environment and historical use for economic use.
4. Cultivation and selection of exotic plants;
5. Develop protocols for the cultivation of plants for each genus.
Wild collection of 133 species of plants is prohibited by law and 128 higher and lower species are registered in the Red Book of Mongolia (Shiirevdamba, 1997), which supports their conservation. Over 20 endangered plants are now in cultivation.