Studies on the perennial pea Vavilovia formosa (Fabaceae) of mountain Aknasar population (Gegham Highland) and under ex situ conditions in the Botanical Gardens of Armenia

Wild perennial pea Vavilovia formosa is a relic and an endangered species of the upper alpine flora of Armenia, specialized to scree habitats. The populations of V. formosa in Armenia, as well as in other sites of the world, are in danger of extinction and need both in situ and ex situ complementary investigation and conservation. Present article contains information on V. formosa Aknasar mountain population studies. Data on natural conditions, flora composition, ecological and coenotic characteristic of the habitat and bio-ecological features of V. formosa are given. The present state of Vavilovia population of mountain Aknasar is satisfactory. The activation of seed reproduction along with vegetative propagation is observed. One of the natural threats leading to the change and reduction of Vavilovia population was estimated to be the overgrowing of mobile scree habitats with turf-forming grasses, which creates conditions for the mountain-meadow vegetation development. V. formosa ex situ conservation strategy is one of the possible ways of its adaptive capacity estimation to environment changes as well as for its saving and using in basic and applied researches. An introductory experiment on the cultivation of Vavilovia in the Yerevan and Sevan Botanical Gardens has started, and some data on bio-morphological and eco-physiological peculiarities under ex situ conditions were obtained.