The Botanical Garden is an educational branch of Irkutsk State University (ISU). Its territory is 30 hectares (74 acres) and includes the following collections, expositions, and display areas: the Ethnobotany Center, the Apothecary Garden, the Korean Garden, the Japanese Garden with plants from the “Green Legacy Hiroshima” project, the Heather Garden, a permanent collection of tropical and subtropical plants, and a tropical pond. The ISU Botanical Garden has the largest collection of plants in Eastern Siberia, numbering about 5,000 species and varieties, including rare and endangered species that are noted in the Red Book of Endangered Species for Irkutsk Province and Russia. The ISU Botanical Garden is listed in the International Registry of Botanical Gardens of the World.

Field of study: BIOLOGY

Mission:

to preserve and enrich the flora of the Baikal region and the world for people by means of educational outreach to society, and by collecting, breeding, studying and preserving the diversity of plants

Ongoing projects:

Development of a scientific basis for the introduction of new species of plants in the Baikal region
Introduction to the in vitro culture of rare and endangered plant species with medicinal properties
Development of methods of clonal micropropagation of valuable and rare plant species