Botanical garden [Ботанічний сад; Botanichnyj sad]. A scientific research institution that studies plants and vegetation, promotes the teaching of botany at universities and other higher schools, popularizes the science, and fulfils practical assignments in areas such as acclimatization and hydridization. In Ukraine ‘apothecary gardens’ (aptekars’ki horody), where medicinal plants were grown, were the precursors of botanical gardens. The first garden of this type was created in Lubny in 1714. Botanical gardens began to be organized as scientific institutions in the 19th century at universities: at Kharkiv University in 1805, Kyiv University in 1836–41 (the university took over the collection of the Kremenets Lyceum, closed in 1831), Lviv University in 1823, Odesa University in 1867, Chernivtsi University in 1877, and Dnipropetrovsk University in 1930. Research is also conducted at the Nikita Botanical Garden in Yalta, which was established in 1812, and at the Donetsk Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. In 1936 the Central Republican Botanical Garden of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR (now National Botanical Garden) was established in Kyiv; it has become the main center of botanical research in Ukraine. In 1986 there were 25 botanical gardens in Ukraine.

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