Vol 110, No 3 (2025)

Changes in vegetation cover and frequency of plant species occurrence have been documented in Fennoscandia over the last century along with climatic changes. A shift of southern species northwards has been noted in prognoses of the last decades. Monitoring of new populations of such plant species stays important north of the Arctic Circle because this latitude is a natural limit for distribution of biota northwards.

Veronica beccabunga L. (Plantaginaceae) has a wide range in Eurasia with single northernmost occurrences in the northern Fennoscandia. The species was first recorded in Murmansk Region in 2016. New populations were described in 2016–2024 in riparian communities of the Imandra Lake basin. Their phytocoenotic surroundings, seasonal development along with sexual and asexual reproduction have been studied.

Five populations have been monitored. Their areas were small (up to ca. 150 m²), they encountered from ten to thousand individuals. The populations were described in floodplain willow and tall-herb communities within a specific ecological niche, or on gravel deposits on river shores. It is revealed that all the populations are confined to rock outcrops enriched in phosphates which have local distribution in the region. The individuals of this species in the populations north of the Arctic Circle are found to set fruits and seeds. Both a high vegetative (1.7 × 10³–18.8 × 10³ shoots) and a high sexual (0.1 × 10⁶–3.1 × 10⁶ seeds) reproduction have been found in the populations. This is an evidence of the optimal reproduction strategy of the species for survival in extreme and unstable environmental conditions.

Since Veronica beccabunga is able to accumulate high concentration of phosphorus and to grow rapidly in riverside stands, its cultivation in artificial ponds is recommended, including buffer ponds in the areas with excess of phosphorus. The species is suggested to include in the threat category “In need of monitoring” in the next edition of the Regional Red Book until identified the species threats and protection status.

The collection nurseries of N.A. Avrorin Polar-Alpine Botanical Garden-Institute (PABGI) of the Kola Science Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences play an important role in preserving the gene pool of rare protected plants. They are located within the Arctic Circle on the Kola Peninsula in the botanical garden in Kirovsk town and on the experimental area in Apatity town. During more than 90-year history of PABGI, 800 samples of 104 protected species of vascular plants listed in the new edition of the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation were planted. Currently, 127 samples of 26 species are cultivated. For 90 species, the resistance to local conditions under cultivation has been assessed: 6% are highly resistant, 46% are resistant, 15% are slightly resistant and 33% are unstable. Four species of the native flora of the Murmansk Region (Alchemilla alpina L., Arnica alpina (L.) Olin, Rhodiola rosea L., Papaver lapponicum (Nordh.) Tolm. subsp. lapponicum) and one introduced plant, the North Caucasian Papaver bracteatum Lindl., have proved highly resistant to conditions of the cultivation. The majority of the cultivated rare species are classified as resistant to cultural conditions, for the maintenance of which vegetative propagation plays a leading role. Northern and mountain plants, including ephemeroids, which are not typical of the nature of the Murmansk Region, are well preserved in the conditions of the botanical garden in Kirovsk town. In recent years, protected plants removed from the wild as part of offset works during the construction of industrial facilities and seized from poachers by authorized bodies have been increasingly transferred to the PABGI nurseries for preservation.

The history of the Department of Botany of the Leningrad (St. Petersburg) University has almost two hundred years of history. During this time, the department was headed by more than 10 scientists. Each of them made a significant contribution to both botanical science and the educational process at the department. What they did is invisibly present at the department to this day. One of them was V.M. Schmidt. He headed the Department of Botany for more than a decade (1978–1990), trained several generations of botanists. They left a mark in statistical data processing, floristry and plant morphology. The article provides data on the main scientific areas of Vladimir Mikhailovich Schmidt's work and a list of his publications.