Dahlias collection in the Botanical garden-institute of VSUT (Yoshkar-Ola)

Abstract

Dahlia Cav. is a beautifully flowering perennial plant from the family Asteraceae Dum. It has storing root tubers that do not survive during the winter in the open ground of central Russia. This crop is characterized by a high variety of colors, shapes and sizes of inflorescences, different plant heights, long-term stable decorative effect from the beginning to the end of the growing season. The purpose of the study is to analyze the Dahlia × cultorum collection in the Botanical Garden-Institute of the Volga State University of Technology (Yoshkar-Ola, Mari El Republic). As of 2021, plants of 32 cultivars were grown in the exposition «Ornamental Herbaceous Plants», each cultivar is represented by 1-5 plants. It is established that the available cultivars belong to 6 classes according to the structure of inflorescences, the largest number of them belong to the class of Decorative and Semi-Cactus (12 and 8 names, respectively). According to the color of the inflorescences, the largest number of cultivars has bicolor inflorescences. The small-flowered cultivars dominated according to the inflorescences size. In general, most cultivars with large and medium-sized inflorescences have a decrease in their size. We can replenish the collection with varieties from the smallest represented classes, as well as the missing 6 classes. The results can be used in the practice of settlements landscaping of the Mari El Republic and nearby regions.