The experience of introduction to culture of the representatives of the genus “Inula L”

The representatives of the genus Inula L. have long been included in cultural flora. In addition to decoration, a number of species have other useful properties - among them are medicinal, feed, dye, insecticide, as well as honey plants. Despite the fact that individual representatives of this genus are widely spread in the collections of Botanical gardens, in general, damask continues to be promising for further introduction work in order to identify the most valuable species for introduction to cultural flora. An equally important task is to identify new useful properties in the species that have already been introduced. The purpose of the research was to study the experience of introducing various species of the genus Inula into cultural flora. Among the species that had passed the introduction test in the GBS RAS, the most decorative and promising for introduction to mass urban gardening were the following species: - I. magnifica, I.racemosa, I. royleana, I. grandiflora. For the compositions imitating natural communities, it was promising to use such species as I. helenium, I. britannica, and I. ensifolia. Almost all the species, with the exception of I. mariae (a natural species from the Transcaucasus, characterized by a narrow rate of reaction, in the conditions of Moscow did not blossom and was unstable in culture) were stable in the conditions of culture, annually form seeds, in some cases mass self-seeding was possible (I. helenium, I. salicina). When analyzing the terms of flowering of various types of damask in the collection the fund of the GBS RAS, 3 groups could be distinguished by the timing of flowering: 1 group - early blooming (in June-July) - I. aspera, I. britannica (flowering from June to August), I. ensifolia, I. magnifica, I. orientalis, I. rhizocephala; 2 group - flowering in the middle period (in July-August) - I. helenium, I. oculis-christi, I.rhizocephala, I. royleana, I. salicina; Group 3-late blooming (August-September) - I. japonica, I. racemosa, I. thapsoides. It is worth noting that the representatives of the third group are most interesting for introduction to urban gardening due to the rather late flowering period.