Officially Sochut Dendropark named after Edmund Leonowicz, commonly knowns as Stepanavan Dendropark (Armenian: Ստեփանավանի դենդրոպարկ), is an arboretum located near the Gyulagarak village, Lori Province, Armenia. Located around 85km (53mi) north of the capital Yerevan, the park was founded in 1931 by Polish engineer-forester Edmund Leonowicz. The arboretum is 35 ha in total of which 17.5 ha consist of natural forest[1] and 15 ha of ornamental trees.[2][3]
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This collection expanded along the newly constructed footpaths and vistas which began to reach into the natural forest and is thought to be the first place in the Transcaucasus, where a natural forest landscape had been reshaped into a Forest Park. Most specimens were acquired from other botanic gardens as part of international exchange programmes with the Botanic Garden in Tbilisi (Georgia), Kyiv (Ukraine), Nikitski, (Crimea, Ukraine), Leningrad and Moscow Central (Soviet Union) as well as the Far East. Specimens were also obtained further afield from Germany, France, Portugal, China and the United States. There are now more than 500 introduced species.[4]
During the operation of the arboretum, it tested the suitability for local conditions of about 2,500 taxa. Of this number of taxa introduced, around 500 species have survived and are growing in the garden.[2]
Nowadays the arboretum is of interest to the general public, professional scientists and eco-tourists. It provides the opportunity to study adaptive characteristics of different plants to the new environmental conditions, conduct training programmes for student internships and study the distinctive flora of the Transcaucasus region.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Stepanavan_Dendropark, and is written by contributors.
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