Officially Sochut Dendropark named after Edmund Leonowicz, commonly knowns as Stepanavan Dendropark ( hy, Ստեփանավանի դենդրոպարկ), is an

arboretum An arboretum (plural: arboreta) in a general sense is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees of a variety of species. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, m ...

located near the

Gyulagarak Gyulagarak ( hy, Գյուլագարակ, also Romanized as Gyulagorak; formerly, Gyulabarrak) is a village in the Lori Province of Armenia. Gyulagarak is near the Stepanavan Dendropark. Notable people *Hrant Shahinyan, two-time Olympic and World ...

village,

Lori Province Lori ( hy, Լոռի, ), is a province (''marz'') of Armenia. It is located in the north of the country, bordering Georgia. Vanadzor is the capital and largest city of the province. Other important towns include Stepanavan, Alaverdi, and Spit ...

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ...

. Located around 85 km north of the capital

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Yerevan is the administrative, cultural, and ...

, the park was founded in 1931 by

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

engineer-forester Edmund Leonowicz. The arboretum is 35 ha in total of which 17.5 ha consist of natural forest and 15 ha of ornamental trees.

History

This collection expanded along the newly constructed footpaths and vistas which began to reach into the natural forest and is thought to be the first place in the

Transcaucasus The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Arme ...

, where a natural forest landscape had been reshaped into a Forest Park. Most specimens were acquired from other botanic gardens as part of international exchange programmes with the Botanic Garden in

Tbilisi Tbilisi ( ; ka, თბილისი ), in some languages still known by its pre-1936 name Tiflis ( ), is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of approximately 1.5 million p ...

(

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to t ...

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

(Ukraine), Nikitski, (

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a p ...

, Ukraine),

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

and

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

Central (

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

) as well as the

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The te ...

. Specimens were also obtained further afield from

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, In recognized minority languages of Portugal: :* mwl, República Pertuesa is a country located on the Iberian Peninsula, in Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Macaronesian ...

, China and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. There are now more than 500

introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived the ...

Collection

The Stepanavan Dendropark consists of deciduous forest and ornamental plantings with avenues of Lime (Tilia cordata), and wild-sourced specimens of

Juglans Walnut trees are any species of tree in the plant genus ''Juglans'', the type genus of the family Juglandaceae, the seeds of which are referred to as walnuts. All species are deciduous trees, tall, with pinnate leaves , with 5–25 leaflets ...

Malus ''Malus'' ( or ) is a genus of about 30–55 species of small deciduous trees or shrubs in the family Rosaceae, including the domesticated orchard apple, crab apples, wild apples, and rainberries. The genus is native to the temperate zo ...

Populus ''Populus'' is a genus of 25–30 species of deciduous flowering plants in the family Salicaceae, native to most of the Northern Hemisphere. English names variously applied to different species include poplar (), aspen, and cottonwood. The we ...

and

Pyrus Pears are fruits produced and consumed around the world, growing on a tree and harvested in the Northern Hemisphere in late summer into October. The pear tree and shrub are a species of genus ''Pyrus'' , in the family Rosaceae, bearing the po ...

. The arboretum is home to a wide variety of trees, including

Magnolia ''Magnolia'' is a large genus of about 210 to 340The number of species in the genus ''Magnolia'' depends on the taxonomic view that one takes up. Recent molecular and morphological research shows that former genera ''Talauma'', ''Dugandiodendro ...

species,

Larix decidua ''Larix decidua'', the European larch, is a species of larch native to the mountains of central Europe, in the Alps and Carpathian Mountains as well as the Pyrenees, with disjunct lowland populations in northern Poland and southern Lithuania. It ...

Cypress Cypress is a common name for various coniferous trees or shrubs of northern temperate regions that belong to the family Cupressaceae. The word ''cypress'' is derived from Old French ''cipres'', which was imported from Latin ''cypressus'', the la ...

es of various genera,

Pinus sibirica ''Pinus sibirica'', or Siberian pine, in the family Pinaceae is a species of pine tree that occurs in Siberia from 58°E in the Ural Mountains east to 126°E in the Stanovoy Range in southern Sakha Republic, and from Igarka at 68°N in the lower ...

Cryptomeria japonica ''Cryptomeria'' (literally "hidden parts") is a monotypic genus of conifer in the cypress family Cupressaceae, formerly belonging to the family Taxodiaceae. It includes only one species, ''Cryptomeria japonica'' (syn. ''Cupressus japonica'' L. ...

and

Sequoiadendron giganteum ''Sequoiadendron giganteum'' (giant sequoia; also known as giant redwood, Sierra redwood, Sierran redwood, California big tree, Wellingtonia or simply big treea nickname also used by John Muir) is the sole living species in the genus ''Sequoiade ...

. Among the native species are

Carpinus caucasica Hornbeams are hardwood trees in the flowering plant genus ''Carpinus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The 30–40 species occur across much of the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Origin of names The common English name ''hor ...

, the Limes Tilia dasystyla and

T. cordata ''Tilia cordata'', the small-leaved lime or small-leaved linden, is a species of tree in the family Malvaceae, native to much of Europe. Other common names include little-leaf or littleleaf linden, or traditionally in South East England, pry or p ...

, Fagus orientalis, the Elms

Ulmus elliptica ''Ulmus elliptica'' Koch (named for the elliptic samara) is a disputed species of elm, native to the Caucasus, where Koch reported (1849, 1872) that it formed extensive woods, and ranging north to southern Ukraine. The tree is said to be closely ...

Ulmus scabra ''Ulmus glabra'' Hudson, the wych elm or Scots elm, has the widest range of the European elm species, from Ireland eastwards to the Urals, and from the Arctic Circle south to the mountains of the Peloponnese and Sicily, where the species reaches i ...

and Ulmus foliacea, the Oaks

Quercus macranthera ''Quercus macranthera'', commonly called the Caucasian oak, or the Persian oak, is a species of deciduous tree native to Western Asia (northern Iran, Turkey; and in the Caucasus in Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan) that is occasionally grown as a ...

Quercus iberica ''Quercus iberica'', the Georgian oak, is a deciduous tree native to the Caucasus (including regions of coastal northeastern Turkey, Asia Minor and Iran).''Georgian State (Soviet) Encyclopedia.'' 1986. Book 10. p. 483. The Georgian oak i ...

and Quercus longipes,

Pinus sylvestris ''Pinus sylvestris'', the Scots pine (UK), Scotch pine (US) or Baltic pine, is a species of tree in the pine family Pinaceae that is native to Eurasia. It can readily be identified by its combination of fairly short, blue-green leaves and oran ...

var. hamata and

Pyrus communis ''Pyrus communis'', the common pear, is a species of pear native to central and eastern Europe, and western Asia. It is one of the most important fruits of temperate regions, being the species from which most orchard pear cultivars grown in Eu ...

(note: Armenia is an important centre of pear diversity with over 20 known species). During the operation of the arboretum, it tested the suitability for local conditions of about 2,500 taxa. Of this number of taxa introduced, around 500 species have survived and are growing in the garden. Seeds from the arboretum are spread throughout the world through Index Seminum published by

Yerevan Botanical Garden The Yerevan Botanical Garden ( hy, Երևանի բուսաբանական այգի) of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences, is the body responsible for plant collections in Armenia. It is located in the Avan district at the north-eastern par ...

. Mainly from the garden in Yerevan, there are also plants planted in the arboretum, imported from various regions of the former

, but also China,

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

and North America.

Gallery

File:Stepanavan Dendropark.jpg, Inside Dendropark File:Stepanavan Dendropark 2011 1.jpg, Alley in Dendropark File:Stepanavan Dendropark 2011 2.jpg, Inside Dendropark File:Stepanavan Dendropark 2011 3.jpg, Alley in Dendropark File:Ստեփանավան 3.jpg, View from the dendropark File:Ստեփանավան 8.jpg, View from the dendropark

Tourist attraction

Nowadays the arboretum is of interest to the general public, professional scientists and eco-tourists. It provides the opportunity to study adaptive characteristics of different plants to the new environmental conditions, conduct training programmes for student internships and study the distinctive flora of the Transcaucasus region. The arboretum is a perfect place for public excursions and botanical or zoological tours. Admission is free and open to the public.

References

{{Protected Areas of Armenia Biota of Armenia Tourist attractions in Lori Province Arboreta Protected areas of Armenia Botanical gardens in Armenia

History

Collection

Gallery

Tourist attraction

See also

References