Flora URSR

Flora URSR (Flora of the Ukrainian SSR). A monumental compilation of systematic, geographical, and practical information and knowledge about all the plant species in Ukraine that was prepared and published by the Institute of Botany of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR in 12 volumes in 1936–65. The project's initiator and the editor of the first volume was Oleksander Fomin. The first volume contains a fundamental study in botanical geography: Yevhen Lavrenko's ‘Kharakterystyka botaniko-heohrafichnykh raioniv URSR’ (Characterization of the Botanical-Geographical Regions of the Ukrainian SSR). At first the chief editor was Yevhen Bordzylovsky, and then a committee of editors, consisting of Dmytro Zerov, Mykhailo Kotov, Mykhailo Dolengo, O. Visiulina, and Andrii Barbarych, took over.

Flora URSR meets the highest standards of modern systematics. Based on the huge herbaria in Ukraine, it gives a systematic inventory and a precise, detailed description of all wild, naturalized, and indigenous plants. To facilitate its use by non-Ukrainian scientists, all the descriptions of species, varieties, and forms are given in Latin translation. The work gives the geographical distribution of the plants, their useful chemical properties, nutritional value, and practical importance. The volumes are richly illustrated with descriptive and analytical drawings, most of which are drawn from nature.

Edvard Zharsky

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