No abstract

Since 2003, the Botanical Garden in Oslo has been involved in a project coordinated by the Norwegian Genetic Resource Centre. The wide range of work supervised by this centre includes conservation of ornamental plants. Our garden has been responsible for the registration and collecting of ornamentals in Southeast-Norway and has a special responsibility for the conservation of Paeonia species and cultivars. As a result of the project, Great-granny's Garden was opened to the public in 2008. It has two objectives. Firstly, it shall be a living archive of Norway's horticultural heritage. Although proven hardy, easy to grow, and long-lived, old varieties of traditional ornamentals are rapidly disappearing. We aim to keep these old-fashioned varieties for sustainable use in future horticulture and encourage people to use them in present day gardening, both in new gardens and in the restoration of old ones. Secondly, the garden is designed as a sensory garden for people with dementia, in cooperation with Oslo's Resource Centre for Dementia and Psychiatric Care of the Elderly. It is enclosed by a picked fence and by shrubs, offers rest on several benches, and has a paved and easy to follow round-walk among traditional garden elements and plants with a lush variety of colours, forms, and scents. A sensory garden stimulates many senses, evokes pleasant emotions, brings out long-forgotten memories, and stimulates communication. Sensory gardens are therefore considered an important tool in the therapy of dementia.

Contrasting with former taxonomic treatments, chromosome numbers and isozyme data support the delimitation of the seminiferous representatives of the Festuca brachyphylla complex in Svalbard into four species: R baffinensis, E brachyphylla, E hyperborea and E edlundiae. Unique enzyme markers were found for all species. Festuca brachyphylla proved hexaploid, and the others, tetraploid. The chromosome numbers of R hyperborea and E brachyphylla (as circumscribed at present) are new to Svalbard. Festuca buffinensis is the most distinct species within the complex, probably representing a separate evolutionary lineage. The three other species seem closely related, showing mutually equidistant relationships. Some deviating plants found on disturbed ground might represent hybrid derivatives or an introduced foreign strain of the elsewhere variable E brachyphylla. Materials of diploid R ovina from northern Fennoscandia was enzymatically closely related to the E brachyphylla complex in Svalbard. Festuca brachyphylla, R edlundiae, and E hyperborea all had a stronger affinity to R ovina than to R baffinensis, indicating that the R brachyphylla complex is an artificial taxonomic group. There are reasons t o believe that the origin of the polyploid taxa of the R brachyphylla complex can be traced to diploid species of the E brachyphylla and R ovina complexes.

Contrasting with former taxonomic treatments, chromosome numbers and isozyme data support the delimitation of the seminiferous representatives of the Festuca brachyphylla complex in Svalbard into four species: R baffinensis, E brachyphylla, E hyperborea and E edlundiae. Unique enzyme markers were found for all species. Festuca brachyphylla proved hexaploid, and the others, tetraploid. The chromosome numbers of R hyperborea and E brachyphylla (as circumscribed at present) are new to Svalbard. Festuca buffinensis is the most distinct species within the complex, probably representing a separate evolutionary lineage. The three other species seem closely related, showing mutually equidistant relationships. Some deviating plants found on disturbed ground might represent hybrid derivatives or an introduced foreign strain of the elsewhere variable E brachyphylla. Materials of diploid R ovina from northern Fennoscandia was enzymatically closely related to the E brachyphylla complex in Svalbard. Festuca brachyphylla, R edlundiae, and E hyperborea all had a stronger affinity to R ovina than to R baffinensis, indicating that the R brachyphylla complex is an artificial taxonomic group. There are reasons t o believe that the origin of the polyploid taxa of the R brachyphylla complex can be traced to diploid species of the E brachyphylla and R ovina complexes.