By Resolution No. 1/2024 of the Chapter of the Michal Oczapowski Medal of August 19, 2024 on the awarding of the Michal Oczapowski Medal by Division II of Biological and Agricultural Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 2024, the medal for outstanding contribution to the development of experimental and applied botany was awarded to our Garden on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.

During a ceremony at the Staszic Palace on December 12, the medal for our unit was received by Dr. Pawel Kojs - Deputy Director for Economic Affairs and Development.

This year in June marked the 50th anniversary of the opening of the PAN Botanical Garden - Center for the Preservation of Biodiversity in Powsin. For half a century, this institution has been one of the leading units in the country and unique in the world, which implement strategies to protect the diversity of wild plants, but also useful plants of great importance for food security. The Garden's scientific staff has for many years been among the leading researchers in in vitro culture, anatomy and ecology of woody plants, conservation biology, urban ecology and other related disciplines in the area of science and life sciences, mainly biology and agriculture. The scientific team is supported by horticultural practitioners who maintain collections of tropical and subtropical plants, vegetable plants, ornamental plants, orchard plants (including one of the largest collections of apple varieties), vanishing species of Polish flora, and a dendrological collection (arboretum).

Recent years have seen a significant increase in publication activity, which is among the largest among botanical garden teams in Poland and includes fundamental papers on the floristic diversity of Poland and Central Asia, global ecological and vegetation summaries, key discoveries in the developmental biology of ferns, novel concepts in the developmental anatomy of trees and many other important discoveries. The results of the work are published in prestigious and discipline-leading journals, including Nature communications, Biological Reviews and Agriculture, Ecosystem and Environment.

The work of the Garden's research and horticultural teams translates applicationally into the development and implementation of strategies for maintaining floristic diversity in Poland and around the world, including in national parks, Natura 2000 network areas, as well as hotspots of global biodiversity (e.g., the Central Asian Mountains).

The traditional collections (of living plants) housed in the Garden and the cryogenic collections in the seed bank maintained by the unit provide a globally unique source of research materials and at the same time enable ex situ conservation, which allows for the restitution of populations of species extinct in the wild. The seed bank maintained and the commitment to the protection of endangered species of Poland's flora are key elements of national and European programs for the protection of plant biodiversity, thus giving our unit responsibility for implementing the provisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the documents and legal acts based on it.

In addition to research activities, the unit is actively involved in the popularization of science, the dissemination of knowledge of natural phenomena in society and the development of sensitivity to the surrounding nature and the formation of pro-ecological attitudes. The aforementioned popularization activities are carried out in the form of didactic classes, cyclic exhibitions and other cultural and educational events on natural and horticultural subjects.

Photo: Anna Karwowska