The XV Congress of the Ukrainian Botanical Society was held at Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University.
The forum, which took place from September 30 to October 5, was organized by the Department of Biology and Ecology of Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University, the M.G. Kholodny Institute of Botany of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and Kherson State University.
Since its first gathering in 1957, this event, held every five years, has become one of the most significant for biological sciences, and particularly for botany, in Ukraine. However, due to the pandemic and subsequently the full-scale war, the leading botanists of the country had not convened since the last congress in 2017. Therefore, the XV Congress of the Ukrainian Botanical Society was a highly anticipated and important event for the entire biological community of Ukraine.
Over the years, the focus of the forum has shifted between various topics such as plant physiology, taxonomy, floristics, biochemistry, and ecology. This year’s organizers upheld this tradition.
The congress’s symbol was the short-headed cornflower (Centaurea breviceps), a short-headed knapweed, endemic to the Lower Dnipro Sands and listed in the Red Data Book of Ukraine. This species’ survival is now threatened by the war.
A total of 285 participants took part in various activities, with 130 scientists attending in person, representing dozens of scientific, environmental institutions, and universities from all parts of Ukraine—from Zaporizhzhia to Lviv, from Sumy to Odesa.