V. L. Komarov Institute of Botany

The Komarov Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences is one of the oldest and leading scientific institutions in Russia in the fields of botany and mycology. Its history dates back more than three centuries: its origins trace to 1714 (according to some sources, to the end of 1713), when by decree of Peter I the Apothecary Garden was established. Initially, its task was to grow medicinal plants for military needs; however, in the first decades of its operation scientific collections began to be formed and the foundations of research work were laid. In 1823, at Prince V.P. Kochubey's suggestion, it was reorganized into the Imperial Botanical Garden, which soon became one of the leading botanical centers in Europe and the world. In 1913, on its bicentennial, the garden was named after Peter the Great. It came under the jurisdiction of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1930. The institute's collections include: herbarium collections (approximately 7 million specimens—about 40% of Russia’s total herbarium holdings); paleobotanical collection (around 120,000 items—one of the three largest repositories of fossil plants in the world); collection of basidiomycete cultures (approximately 1,600 strains); living plant collections (in the Peter the Great Botanical Garden—about 18,000 taxa in open and closed ground).

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