DATABASE OF THE GENUS IRIS COLLECTION IN STAVROPOL BOTANICAL GARDEN

Abstract

Modern tendencies in the development of computer technologies in science dictate
certain conditions of presenting and storage of information. The creation of databases which
contain lists of plant species and other information has become a necessity in all botanical
gardens. In this regard, the aim of our work is to generalize the collected data about the
studied plants of the collection fund into a unified data system. The article describes
intermediate results of the database compilation, including the collection of the genus iris
species in Stavropol botanical garden (SBG). Currently, there are more than 350 varieties and
20 species of this plant, the study of which began in 1961. Over the past years in SBG it has
become necessary to perform a diligent cataloguing of species and varieties of iris collection,
since many of them weren’t identified. Creating a full detailed database allows collecting all
the accumulated information over a 60-year period of work. This makes the identification
process of lost variety names much easier and allows analyzing the available data. At present,
the list includes 553 taxa that existed in the SBG collection from 1967 to 2020. It contains
additional information along with the name of the taxon. According to the list data available
by now, 367 varieties can be attributed to the group of tall bearded irises. The oldest variety
dates back to 1830. It was lost from the collection in 1971. For the longest period of time (53
years), 27 varieties have been preserved among SBG introduced species. Due to the created
database for the period 2018-2020, the names of more than 65 varieties were clarified, which
was about 18% of the entire collection. Also, each sample of the iris collection had already
had a picture in the electronic photograph collection by 2020. The creation of preliminary
electronic taxonomic lists offers great prospects in the future and allows reaching a new level
of research work, offers opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation between specialists.