Botany

Botany (ботаніка; botanika).

Origins. The earliest descriptive information about the flora of Ukraine is found in ancient Greek, Roman, Arab, and Byzantine sources. In more recent times such information appeared in the works of traveling scholars of the 16th–17th century, such as Marcin Kromer, Michalon Lithuanus, and Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan. Botany was first studied at the Kyivan Mohyla Academy. Nestor Ambodyk-Maksymovych, who graduated from the academy, compiled the first botanical dictionary in the Russian Empire (1795) and wrote Pervonachal'nye osnovaniia botaniky (The Original Foundations of Botany, 1796). Opanas Maslovsky, a professor at the academy, published a systematic description of plants in 1798. German scholars who worked in the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the 18th century—Johann Anton Güldenstädt, Peter Pallas, S. Gmelin, and M. Biberstein—described the flora of Ukraine in their writings.

Professors of universities founded in Ukraine at the beginning of the 19th century wrote on the flora of Ukraine and its distribution. The first professors of Kharkiv University (at which a botanical garden was established in 1805) studied the plants of Slobidska Ukraine: F. Deliavin set up a herbarium of 6,000 species, and Vasilii Cherniaev maintained a large herbarium and studied the flora of lower plant species in Ukraine. In 1869 the Kharkiv Society of Naturalists was formed at Kharkiv University and began publishing its Trudy. A. Pitra conducted the first algological and mycological research and published works on plant anatomy. L. Cienkowski, the founder of ontogenetic morphology of the lower plants and a professor at Odesa University (1865–72) and Kharkiv University (1872–87), made important contributions to botany. Many of his students worked on plant morphology, evolutionary history, and systematics. Among them, L. Rainhard and V. Arnoldi, the founder of the Kharkiv school of algologists, gained distinction. Andrei Krasnov studied phytogeography, particularly the plants of the Kharkiv region, Poltava region, and southern steppe region. V. Taliev, who later became a professor in Moscow, also specialized in phytogeography. Andrii O. Potebnia’s contributions to mycology are well known: he was the first in Ukraine to use pure cultures in research. His students—Tymofii Strakhov, A. Trofymovych, and others—specialized usually in phytopathology. Most of V. Butkevych’s and Viacheslav Zalesky’s works were devoted to plant physiology.

At Kyiv University Willibald Besser, the first professor of botany, published studies of the flora of Galicia (1809) and of Right-Bank Ukraine (1822). His students—Antoni Andrzejowski, E. Trautfetter (who was also instrumental in the development of the Kyiv University botanical garden), and Opanas Rohovych—continued Besser’s work in this area (Rohovych also studied the flora of the Chernihiv region and Poltava region). The fungi and algae of the Chernihiv region and the algae of the Kyiv region were investigated by I. Borshchov, who also worked in other branches of botany. The paleobotanist Ivan Schmalhausen, who wrote Flora Iugo-Zapadnoi Rossii (The Flora of Southwestern Russia, 1886) and Flora Srednei i Iuzhnoi Rossii, Kryma i severnogo Kavkaza (The Flora of Central and Southern Russia, the Crimea, and northern Caucasia, 1895–7), made an important contribution to botany, as did the algologist and mycologist Ya. Walz, the pioneer in phytophysiology Yosyp Baranetsky, and the plant physiologist K. Puriievych. The prominent cytologist and embryologist S. Navashin published basic works on the structure of the nucleus and chromosomes. Others who should be mentioned alongside these figures are Mykola H. Kholodny, N. Tsinger, Yakiv Modylevsky, Volodymyr Finn, Lev Delone, and P. Oksiiuk. Navashin’s successor to the chair of botany at Kyiv University, Oleksander Fomin, expanded the university’s botanical garden and the Institute of Botany of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. His students were the renowned botanist Dmytro Zerov and the dendrologist O. Lypa. The mosses were studied by Andrii Sapiehin, the author of Mokhy hirs'koho Krymu (The Mosses of the Crimean Mountains). Yevhen Votchal, professor at Kyiv Polytechnical Institute, made important contributions to plant physiology and founded the Ukrainian school of plant physiologists, which included Arkadii Okanenko, V. Kolkunov, O. Tabentsky (known for his atlas of the sugar beet), I. Tolmachov, A. Kekukha, A. Levshin, and others. The Kyiv Society of Naturalists was affiliated with Kyiv University and Kyiv Polytechnical Institute.

In Southern Ukraine, Odesa University, which was established in 1864, and its New Russia Society of Naturalists, which began publishing its Zapiski in 1872, boasted among their members such botanists as the mycologist A. Yanovych, the morphologists-systematists I. Koshchuh, Ye. Delaroux, F. Kamensky, and V. Khmelevsky, and the physiologists W. Rothert and his student F. Porodko. Gavriil Tanfilev specialized in the interrelationship between plants and soils and authored one of the first collections of geobotanical research. The New Russia Society of Naturalists, in its Zapiski, published, among other works, Józef Paczoski’s (one of the founders of phytocoenology) studies of Southern Ukraine’s flora. The algae of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov were studied by the Sevastopol Biological Station (est 1871) of the New Russia Society of Naturalists.

In Galicia and Bukovyna under Austria, botanical research was conducted by J. Sziwerek, I. Szultes (of Lviv University), E. Tangl, K. Linsbauer, and S. Porsche (of Chernivtsi University). Ostap Voloshchak, professor at the Lviv Polytechnical Institute, studied the flora of Galicia. Ivan Verkhratsky and Mykola Melnyk compiled Ukrainian botanical vocabulary and nomenclature for the publications of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. The flora of Western Ukraine was studied by the German scholar F. Pax, the Polish specialists Hugo Zapałowicz, J. Rostafiński, Antoni Rehman, W. Szafer, and S. Kulczyński, and the Ukrainian botanists O. Mryts, H. Kozii, Ya. Ivanytsky, and others.

In 1918, with the founding of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, the botanical section of the Second Division of the academy and the Ukrainian Botanical Society at the academy were established. They included among their members most of the botanists in Ukraine. In 1921 the Botanical Cabinet and Herbarium of the academy were established under Oleksander Fomin. In the same year the journal Ukraïns'kyi botanichnyi zhurnal began publication; in 1924 Visnyk Kyïvs'koho botanichnoho sadu appeared. Botanical research in Ukraine became well systematized in the 1920s and 1930s, which made possible the publication of the monumental 12-volume Flora URSR (The Flora of the Ukrainian SSR) beginning in 1936. Its first editor was O. Fomin, and its contributors included Yevhen Bordzylovsky, E. Visiulina, Mykhailo Dolengo, Mykhailo Kotov, Yevhen Lavrenko, Oleksander Yanata, and Dmytro Zerov. In 1927 Ye. Vulf initiated the publication of Flora Krymu (The Flora of the Crimea; by 1966, nine volumes had appeared). At the same time important work was done in collaboration with the Institute of the Ukrainian Scientific Language to standardize botanical terminology: published were N. Osadcha-Yanata’s Slovnyk botanichnoï nomenklatury (A Dictionary of Botanical Nomenclature, 1928) and V. Vovchanetsky and Ya. Lepchenko’s Slovnyk botanichnoï terminolohiï (Dictionary of Botanical Terminology, 1932).

The botanical section of the Agricultural Scientific Committee of Ukraine was established in 1919 in Kyiv and headed by Oleksander Yanata. It was closely tied to a large network of institutions, primarily of agricultural botany, and co-ordinated the work of many scientists and scientific societies. Before its abolition in 1928 in Kharkiv, where it had been transferred in 1927, the committee had many accomplishments to its credit. Eventually it was replaced by the Ukrainian Institute of Applied Botany. Botanical research in Ukraine was conducted and published by the following bodies: the Kyiv Society of Naturalists with its Zapysky; the Natural Science Section of the Kharkiv Scientific Society with its Visnyk pryrodoznavstva; the Kharkiv Scientific Research Chair of Botany with its Naukovi zapysky; and the Ukrainian Committee for the Protection of Natural Monuments with its series Okhorona pam’iatok pryrody na Ukraïni and Materiialy okhorony pryrody na Ukraïni.

In the 1930s a shift in Soviet government policy led to the reorganization of all scientific institutions, including those devoted to botany. Institutions of applied botany were subordinated to the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Moscow, while institutions specializing in other areas of botany became parts of various institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. In 1931 the Institute of Botany of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR replaced the Botanical Museum and Herbarium and became the center for botanical research in Ukraine. During the Stalinist terror many prominent Ukrainian botanists were exiled. After 1933 botanical terminology was extensively Russified, and scientific research came under strict government and Communist Party control to ensure consistency with official ideology and subordination to production goals. The preparation of materials for Flora URSR continued, however. During this period a critical survey of Ukraine’s flora was prepared by Mykhailo Dolengo. Yevhen Lavrenko and Yurii Kleopov wrote a series of works on phytogeography and florigenesis and studied endemism and the problem of relicts from a historical aspect. Much attention was given to the plant resources of Ukraine—fodder, industrial crops, and medicinal plants—by researchers such as Mykhailo Kotov.

Since the 1950s many botanists have continued to devote themselves to floristics and systematics; in 1950 and 1965 Vyznachnyk roslyn URSR (Field Guide to the Plants of the Ukrainian SSR) was published under the editorship of Dmytro Zerov; M. Rubtsov’s Vyznachnyk vyshchykh roslyn Krymu (Field Guide to the Higher Plants of the Crimea) was published in 1972, and V. Chopyk and Mykhailo Kotov’s Vyznachnyk roslyn Ukraïns'kykh Karpat (Field Guide to the Plants of the Ukrainian Carpathians) was published in 1977.

In the 1960s and 1970s, besides the classical morphological-geographical method, the experimental-morphological method was applied with increasing frequency in the systematics of the higher plants by such Kharkiv biosystematists as Yu. Prokudin, O. Vovk, and K. Yermolenko. The monograph Zlaki Ukrainy (Gramineae of Ukraine, 1977) is notable in this respect. Scholars such as V. Chopyk and B. Smyk analyzed the flora of the basic geographical regions. S. Fodor produced an inventory of the flora of Transcarpathia in 1974. The genesis of biomorphostructures in taxons was investigated by V. Kolishchuk and S. Ziman. The staff of the Donetsk Botanical Garden (Ye. Kondratiuk and others) studied the problems of applied botany. In the 1970s and 1980s in the area of applied floristics flowering weeds were inventoried, and essential oil plants, honey-nectar-yielding plants, fodder plants, poisonous plants, and medicinal plants and herbs were studied by such scholars as O. Lypa, Andrii Barbarych, S. Ivchenko, and S. Moroziuk.

Since 1931 research on lower plants have been co-ordinated by the Institute of Botany of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (now Institute of Botany of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine). The results of algological research were published in Vyznachnyk prisnovodnykh vodorostei URSR (Field Guide to Freshwater Algae in the Ukrainian SSR, 1938–77). Among the contributors were Oleksander Korshykov, Dmytro Svyrenko, V. Myroniuk, Oleksander Topachevsky, O. Oksiiuk, Yakiv Roll, O. Matviienko, I. Pohrebniak, T. Volkova, N. Masiuk, and S. Kuzmenko. Algae of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov were studied by the members of the Institute of the Biology of Southern Seas of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR in Sevastopol: N. Morozova-Vodianytska, A. Kaluhina-Hutnyk, and others. In the 1960s and 1970s, ecological-coenological research on algae was conducted mainly by the Institute of Botany and the Institute of Hydrobiology of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. Morphological-systematical and evolutionary-phylogenetic studies were written by O. Topachevsky—Pytannia morfolohiï i tsytolohiï vodorostei (Problems of the Morphology and Cytology of Algae, 1962)—and Dmytro Zerov—Narys fitohenezy bezsudynnykh roslyn (An Outline of the Phytogenesis of Non-vascular Plants, 1972).

Mycoflora were studied by M. Tselle, Mykola Pidoplichko, O. Salunsky, Vira Bilai, M. Hrebeniuk, and S. Vasser. In 1967–79 the five-volume Vyznachnyk hrybiv Ukraïny (Field Guide to the Fungi of Ukraine) was produced by such botanists as S. Morochkovsky, M. Zerova, I. Dudka, Z. Lavitska, H. Radziievsky, and M. Smitska. Pathogenic fungi and fungi-producing antibiotics were studied at the Institute of Microbiology and Virology of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. Ecological groups of fungi were studied by Ye. Koval and R. Andreeva. M. Litvinov and I. Dudka specialized in the research methods for aquatic fungi. Alfred Oksner studied the lichen flora of Ukraine and was the author of the two-volume Flora lyshainykiv Ukraïny (The Lichen Flora of Ukraine, 1956–8). M. Makarevych wrote Analiz likhenoflory Ukraïns'kykh Karpat (An Analysis of the Lichen Flora of the Ukrainian Carpathians, 1963). Dmytro Zerov devoted his attention to mosses and published Torfovi mokhy Ukraïny (Peat Mosses of Ukraine, 1928) and Flora pechinochnykh i sfahnovykh mokhiv Ukraïny (Flora of the Liverworts and Sphagnidae of Ukraine, 1964). L. Partyka, Andrii Lazarenko, H. Vachura, M. Slobodian, V. Melnychuk, and K. Ulychna also studied mosses.

The natural vegetation of Ukraine has been investigated quite thoroughly in respect to natural regions and types of vegetation. At the turn of the 20th century a number of works on the vegetation of the steppe and forest-steppe belts were produced by Gavriil Tanfilev, Andrei Krasnov, Yurii Vysotsky, and Józef Paczoski. At first descriptions of natural vegetation were of a phytogeographic nature. In the 1930s descriptions of associations and general studies began to appear; their authors were K. Malynovsky, Mykhailo Holubets, V. Kolishchuk, S. Stoiko, O. Belhard, and others.

Yevhen Lavrenko, Yurii Kleopov, M. Shalyt, S. Illichevsky, and others studied the vegetation of the steppes. Yurii Sheliah-Sosonko and H. Kukovytsia studied the steppes of Podilia; N. Chernova and L. Pryvalova studied the steppe of the Crimea. Research results are found in Roslynnist' zasolenykh hruntiv (The Vegetation of Saline Soils, 1963) and Stepy, kam’ianysti vidslonennia, pisky (The Steppes, Stony Ground, Sands, 1973) by F. Hryn, V. Osychniuk, M. Kosets, and V. Tkachenko.

The vegetation of the Dnipro River floodplains were studied by R. Yelenevsky, O. Sokolsky, A. Alekseev, D. Afanasev, and O. Belhard. The meadow vegetation of Left-Bank Ukraine and northern Ukraine were investigated by S. Muliarchuk, H. Bilyk, A. Alekseev, and V. Tkachenko; the meadows of the Rivne region by M. Buvaltsev; the southern steppe by I. Hryhora; Podilia by I. Shipova and I. Amelin. The meadows of the Carpathian Mountains, their foothills, and Transcarpathia were studied in detail by the geobotanists of Lviv: H. Kozii, K. Malynovsky, I. Artemchuk, H. Bilyk, Ye. Bradis, and V. Horbyk.

The bogs of Ukraine were studied by Yevhen Lavrenko, Dmytro Zerov, Ye. Bradis, H. Bachuryna, I. Hryhora, and L. Kucheriava. Their topology was elaborated by Ye. Bradis, A. Kuzmichov, and T. Andriienko.

Much attention has been devoted to the forests of Ukraine. Vladimir Povarnitsyn, S. Muliarchuk, and Yurii Sheliah-Sosonko studied the forests of Polisia; M. Kosets and F. Hryn, the Volhynian-Podilian Upland and Galicia; M. Popov and I. Yakymchuk, the Carpathian Mountains; Z. Horokhova, Bukovyna; M. Kosets, the beech forests; Mykhailo Kotov, V. Miakushko, F. Hryn, and V. Osychniuk, the forest-steppe; O. Belhard, Yu. Sheliah-Sosonko, and H. Bilyk, the steppe belt; H. Poplavska, L. Makhaeva, and Ya. Didukh, the Crimea; P. Berehovy, D. Afanasev, and V. Tkachenko, the forests in river floodplains. S. Hensiruk, B. Ostapenko, V. Danko, and Z. Herushynsky described in detail the typology of Ukraine’s forests. Yu. Sheliah-Sosonko examined the evolution of oak forests, and A. Kuzmovych, alder forests. Hryhorii Makhiv and P. Kozhevnikov specialized in ecology. Borys Ivanytsky made an important contribution to the study of forests and forestry.

The problem of the structural-functional organization of phytocoenoses and of natural vegetation received attention from scientists such as Józef Paczoski, Petro Pohrebniak, D. Lavrynenko, M. Shalyt, V. Miakushko, V. Osychniuk, and S. Ziman. Phytocoenotic analysis, which had been introduced by Yurii Vysotsky and J. Paczoski, was continued by H. Poplavska and Yurii Sheliah-Sosonko. Ecological study has developed in new directions such as comparative ecology and biogeocoenology. The ecological properties of various plant species, their reaction to environmental change, and variation under different ecological influences are studied at the Institute of Botany of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the National Botanical Garden, as well as at other botanical gardens, where the introduction and acclimatization of plants are also studied.

Radioecology, ecomorphology, and ecological genetics are also being researched. Materials on energy transformation, chemical changes, and water and biomass changes in various ecological systems have been compiled by M. Voinstvensky, K. Malynovsky, and many others. Work on mathematical models of ecological processes was begun by Mykhailo Holubets and Ya. Odynak. Ecosystem research is conducted at the Institute of Botany of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and its Lviv branch, which specializes in the structural-functional organization of steppe and Carpathian ecosystems; at Dnipro National University, which concentrates on forest and steppe ecosystems; and elsewhere. The botanical gardens, with scientists such as Andrii Hrodzinsky and Ye. Kondratiuk, were working on the reclamation of mine-scarred land and the establishment of artificial biogeocoenoses on it.

Yevhen Lavrenko and Yurii Kleopov had began mapping the vegetation of Ukraine, but only Lehenda do karty roslynnosty URSR (Legend to the Map of Vegetation of the Ukrainian SSR, 1938) was published. This work was continued by H. Bilyk, Ye. Bradis, and M. Kosets. In 1977 Heobotanichne raionuvannia Ukraïns'koï RSR (The Geobotanical Regions of the Ukrainian SSR) was published.

Paleobotanical research was begun in the middle of the 19th century. Ivan Schmalhausen studied the Paleogene and Devonian flora of Ukraine. M. Zalessky specialized in the Carbonaceous flora of the Donets Basin (1902–28), and Afrykan Kryshtofovych in the Sarmatian flora of the Krynka River in the Donets Basin (1916). Dmytro Zerov first applied the sporal method to the study of the flora of the Quarternary period. He also investigated the interglacial flora of Ukraine and analyzed the Holocene. Owing to numerous studies by scholars such as Kateryna Novyk (1931–54), O. Shchoholiv, T. Ishchenko, and others, the fossilized flora of the Carbonaceous period in the Donets Basin and other regions is better known; E. Migachova, Nina Pymenova, L. Kononenko, S. Vosanchuk, A. Lapteva, Vasyl Hlushko, and Yu. Pelypenko studied other periods in the various regions of Ukraine.

Stratigraphic works on the various layers of Paleogene and Neogene deposits were written by A. Mikhelis, A. Kruzina, and T. Hubkina. The Holocene is the most investigated period, owing to the studies of Yevhen Lavrenko, O. Artiushenko (steppe and forest-steppe), S. Kulczyński, H. Pashkevych, O. Mryts, W. Tymrakiewicz, M. Cherevko (Subcarpathian foothills), H. Kozii, S. Tolpa, and Dmytro Zerov (Polisia and the Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains). S. Siabrai studied the marine palinology of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov; O. Berchenko and A. Ishchenko studied fossilized marine plants.

Cytological and embryological research was conducted at the Chair of Higher Plants of Kyiv University (Volodymyr Finn), at the Department of Cytology and Embryology of the Institute of Botany of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (Yakiv Modylevsky), at the Chair of Biology of the Kyiv Medical Institute (M. Chernoiarov), and at several other schools. Chromosome morphology was been studied by Lev Delone, M. Chernoiarov, Hryhorii A. Levytsky, Liubov Zafiiovska, Ye. Kordium, and P. Oksiiuk. The results of this research appeared in a chromosome atlas of the mosses of the Soviet Union edited by Andrii Lazarenko (1971). The process of meiosis was studied by Ya. Modylevsky, M. Chernoiarov, Andrii Sapiehin (X-ray mutants), N. Zaikovska, and O. Yarmoliuk. Kostiantyn Sytnyk developed the cytophysiological method of research. Electron-microscopic reseach on plant cells was begun in 1961 by O. Siliaeva and S. Lebedev at the Ukrainian Agricultural Academy.

In the 1930s the initial morphological-descriptive method was superseded by the experimental method in cytoembryology, and in the 1970s and 1980s the structural-functional approach was introduced. Volodymyr Finn’s research in the development of male gametes of the higher plants was supplemented by M. Chernoiarov, K. Kostriukova, and Yu. Rudenko. The peculiarities of the development of the male generative sphere were investigated by Yakiv Modylevsky, P. Oksiiuk, and M. Khudiak; their ultra-structure was analyzed by Ye. Kordium and H. Iliashchenko (1977). Female gametophytes were studied by Ya. Modylevsky and his students. S. Navashin, Ya. Modylevsky, L. Dziubenko, and others studied fertilization. P. Oksiiuk, and M. Khudiak specialized in the embryogenesis and endospermogenesis in Gramineae; N. Zaikovska and O. Yarmoliuk studied it in other species. Embryonic development of angiosperms growing high in the Carpathian Mountains were studied by Kh. Rudenko and V. Mandryk.

Various types of asexual reproduction were studied by A. Dzevaltovsky, A. Radionenko, and H. Romanova. Data on species incompatibility were published in M. Khudiak’s Endosperm pokrytonasinnykh roslyn (The Endosperm of Angiosperms, 1965) and V. Bannykova’s Tsytoembriolohiia mizhvydovoï nesumisnosti u roslyn (The Cytoembryology of Species Incompatibility in Plants, 1975). The cytoembryological aspects of the sexual reproduction of angiosperms were investigated by Ye. Kordium and Ivan Hlushchenko. O. Tabentsky and M. Moiseeva did extensive work in plant anatomy, particularly on the physiological functions of plants.

Research in plant physiology is conducted at the Institute of Plant Physiology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine as well as at universities. The problems of plant nutrition, water regime, and transpiration under field conditions have long been at the center of attention. Yevhen Votchal and then his students Arkadii Okanenko, L. Maksymchuk, and others specialized in these areas. The organic-mineral plant nutrition system and the physiological effects of various microelements were studied by Petro Vlasiuk, Aleksandr Dushechkin, T. Demydenko, Fedir Matskov, Z. Klymovytska, Andrii Manoryk, E. Rudakova, and others. The exchange of substances in plant respiration was studied by S. Hrebinsky and others. Winter resistance and salt resistance in plants were studied by D. Protsenko, L. Polishchuk, I. Bilokin, and O. Biletska. The radioactive isotope method for locating substances in a plant was used by Dmytro Hrodzinsky, Yu. Porutsky, and Z. Klymovytska. Physiologists from various scientific research institutes are involved in the study of frost and cold resistance in plants.

The effect of the sun on plant physiology was described by Volodymyr Liubymenko in his Fotosyntez i khemosyntez (Photosynthesis and Chemical Synthesis, 1933) and by Arkadii Okanenko, Ye. Buslova, Ya. Romashko, and many others. The photochemistry of chlorophyll was analyzed by B. Dain and I. Dilung. The biosynthesis of chlorophyll and carotin was studied by O. Sudina and her co-workers. The exchange of energy between plants and the environment was studied by H. Ilkun and H. Samokhvalov. Dmytro Hrodzinsky, M. Bidzilia, and B. Huliaev introduced the biophysical approach to photosynthesis research.

The problem of plant growth and development was Mykola H. Kholodny’s speciality. He developed the hormonal theory of tropisms. The effect of phytohormones on fruit development was studied by O. Sereisky. M. Moiseeva researched the production of these hormones in various tissues and organs. Trokhym Lysenko, Andrii Sapiehin, and others studied the stages of growth. M. Liubynsky studied the vegetative multiplication of plants. A. Zakordonets and Kostiantyn Sytnyk investigated the dependence of the interrelationship between subsurface and surface plant organs in various environments. H. Semenenko studied the biosynthesis of the nucleic acid exchange in relation to the growth of higher plants. The biochemical approach to studying plant growth was described by O. Boichuk, Ya. Dudynsky, L. Musatenko, and R. Protsko in Fizioloho-biokhimichni osnovy rostu roslyn (The Physiological-Biochemical Bases of Plant Growth, 1966). The problem of polarity in metabolism and plant development was studied by H. Molotkovsky. Andrii Hrodzinsky, in his Osnovy khimichnoï vzaiemodiï roslyn (Foundations of the Chemical Interaction of Plants, 1973), described the role of allelopathetic interaction in natural and artifical coenosis. The effect of industrial pollution on plant metabolism was studied by plant physiologists at the Donetsk Botanical Garden and other scientific research institutes.

The transfer and storage of substances and the biochemistry of the tissues of vascular bundles and parenchyma were studied by I. Vyvalko and V. Lempytska. Since 1977, under K. Sytnyk’s direction, research in cryophytophysiology was conducted in order to develop methods of protecting the viability of plant organisms at low temperatures and of preserving plants cryonically.

Biochemical research on plants branched out in various directions: P. Mushak and M. Cheren studied the dynamics of the contents and the interrelationship between nucleic acids and protein, as well as their molecular composition; L. Einor and V. Myroniuk studied fermentation and the reaction of oxygen exchange in respiration; I. Drokova and N. Tupyk studied pigments and vitamins; Ye. Shiiukova and S. Pyrozhenko studied the nature of structural and stored polysaccharides; V. Parshikov studied lipids and their structure.

Botanists belong to the Ukrainian Botanical Society, which used to be part of the All-Union Botanical Society. Scientific papers are published in Ukraïns'kyi botanichnyi zhurnal. In Galicia the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv published Zbirnyk Matematychno-pryrodopysno-likars’koï sektsiï NTSh in 1897–1939 and Zbirnyk Fiziohrafichnoï komisiï NTSh in 1931–9.

The following Ukrainian botanists pursued their research outside Ukraine: Borys Ivanytsky, I. Vakulenko, Oleksander Arkhimovych, N. Desiatova-Shostenko, Liubov Zafiiovska, Ye. Zankevych, Ye. Kleopova, R. Maksymovych, Hryhorii Makhiv, N. Osadcha-Yanata, and M. Persydsky.

(See also Biology, Agronomy, Forestry, Environmental protection, Flora.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bilokin, I. ‘Botanichna nauka v Kyïvs'komu universyteti,’ Naukovi zapysky Kyïvs'koho universytetu, 1950, no. 6
Modilevskii, Ya. Istoriia otechestvennoi embriologii vysshikh rastenii (Kyiv 1956)
Zerov, Dmytro. ‘Rozvytok botaniky na Ukraïni pislia Velykoï Zhovtnevoï sotsialistychnoï revoliutsiï,’ in Rozvytok nauky v Ukraïnskii RSR za 40 rokiv (Kyiv 1957)
Istoriia Akademiï nauk Ukraïns'koï RSR, 2 vols (Kyiv 1967)
Sytnyk K. ‘Florystyka, systematyka i heohrafiia roslyn ta ïkh naiblyzhchi zavdannia,’ Ukraïns'kyi botanichnyi zhurnal, 1977, no. 5
Istoriia Akademii nauk Ukrainskoi SSR (Kyiv 1979)

Edvard Zharsky

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]