The high mountain perennial pea Vavilovia formosa (Steven) Fed., commonly known as beautiful vavilovia, is a rare species of the high alpine flora of Armenia bound to scree habitats. Populations of V. formosa in Armenia, as well as in other regions of the world, are endangered and need to be studied and preserved both in natural and ex situ conditions. Studies of the relic alpine pea V. formosa, unique in its bioecological features and beauty, were initiated in Armenia in the20-30s of the last century and continue at the present time. Thanks to numerous expeditions tothe hard-to-reach habitats of Vavilovia in the Gegham and Syunik highlands, Zangezur ridge, manyresearchers of the Armenian flora collected herbarium material, conducted ecological and cоenoticstudies, analyzed karyology on the basis of local populations, repeatedly conducted experimentson growing Vavilovia in laboratory conditions and in botanical gardens of Armenia. As a result of fieldobservations, information was obtained on the status of Vavilovia populations in different regionsof the republic, in natural conditions, floristic and coenotic composition of habitats at the Aknasarand Sevkatar (Sevsar) mountain peaks, on slopes near the Aknalich lake, of the Mets Ishkhansarmountain, and near the Ughtasar mountain peak. One of the main natural threats leading to thechange in and shrinking of Vavilovia populations is the overgrowth of mobile scree habitats with turf-forming grasses, which creates conditions for the development of mountain-meadow vegetationon screes. The ex situ conservation strategy for V. formosa is one of the possible ways to evaluateits adaptive capacity to environmental changes, as well as to conserve it and use in basic andapplied research. An experiment on the introduction and cultivation of Vavilovia conducted by theYerevan and Sevan Botanical Gardens of Armenia has yielded some data on biomorphological andecophysiological features in ex situ conditions.

A floristic survey of the «Sokol» site of the Ust-Lensky Nature Reserve conducted in the summer of 2015–2017 revealed anomalies in the color of flowers in 16 species of dicotyledonous plants: 7 pecies (Papaver leucotrichum, P. pulvinatum, Astragalus norvegicus, Hedysarum arcticum, Erichium villosum, Pedicularis verticillata, Taraxacum macilentum) showed a tendency to albinism; 3 white- flowered species (Claytonia arctica, Dryas incisa, Pedicularis capitata) demonstrated a shift into the yellow part of the color spectrum, and 5 species (Minuartia arctica, Diapensia obovata, Myosotis asiatica, Chrysanthemum zawadskii, Taraxacum stepanovae) – into the red part of the spectrum. A wide range of colors is displayed by Astragalus alpinus.

Evgenii V. Wulff is an outstanding floristic phytogeographer, a classic in geography of cultivated plants. The scientific heritage of E.V. Wulff deserves a wider use, especially when solving such a very topical scientific problem for Russia due to the enrichment of the species composition in regional agrofloras. The paper deals with the Leningrad period of the scientist’s research activity, which lasted from February 1, 1926 until his death during WW2 in the besieged Leningrad (December 21, 1941). These were the years E.V. Wulff spent in Leningrad, which marked the period of his highest creative
activity, when he was inseparably linked with Nikolai I. Vavilov, who invited him in 1925 to the All-Union Institute of Applied Botany and New Crops (now the N.I. Vavilov All-Russian Institute of Plant Genetic Resources).

Transl. of: «International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants. Ed. 9. Scripta Horticulturae. 2016;18:I-XVII+1-190».

Translation from English by Chukhina I.G., Miftakhova S.R., Dorofeyev V.I.