Missouri Botanical Garden hosts historic meeting to discuss endangered plants in the Cauca...(ablishment of personal relationships and...)

Since 2003, the Missouri Botanical Garden has played a role in bringing scientists from the region together to discuss Caucasian plant life. With financial support diminishing, the Garden held a botanical conference in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. It was the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 that botanists from Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia gathered to discuss ways to protect Caucasian plant life. Scientists have met twice since then.

During the meeting, a committee was formed to complete a Caucasian Plant Red List a list of the most endangered plants with the Garden's Curator of the Herbarium, Dr. James Solomon as the editor. The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) funded the project.

One of the additional goals of this International Caucasian Symposium is to provide Caucasian plant specialists with the opportunity to learn about herbarium collection management and the many ways that collection data may be shared. The Missouri Botanical Garden's herbarium, which contains more than six million specimens, is widely considered one of the best in the world. The techniques and procedures used at the Garden will be used as a model of how to utilize modern technology in the herbaria of their home country.

The International Caucasian Symposium will be open to the public on Oct. 7 from 9 a.m. to noon at the Monsanto Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden, located at 4500 Shaw Blvd at the intersection of Shaw and Vandeventer. Botanical specialists from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia and Turkey will give an overview of the Caucasian flora and vegetation.

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