Schrenk’s False Spirea
Status: CR B2ab(iii). Endemic, ornamental, and rare plant with a decreasing population. A representative of a relict genus.
Description. An ornamental plant with very beautiful wood suitable for artistic crafts. A small shrub up to 3 m tall with a dense broom-like crown, with finely pubescent young shoots covered with grayish-yellow, longitudinally cracking and peeling bark. Leaves are pinnate, 2 - 13 cm long, and 1.5 - 10 mm wide, narrow-linear with 20 - 30 pairs of small oval, thickish, pubescent leaflets up to 3 mm long. Flowers are in paniculate inflorescences 9 - 20 cm long, developing at the ends of annual shoots. The flowers are whitish-pink and fragrant, with the upper ones almost sessile, having a broad cup-like hypanthium with sparse hairs and yellowish glands. Leaflets are gray-haired, 5 mm long.
Biological features. A plant with a long growing season. In natural conditions, it begins to vegetate in April and flowers in June. Flowering lasts for 15-20 days. Fruits ripen from late July to September. Fallen seeds germinate after 18 days. One individual produces 2,500 fruits, but natural regeneration is low.
General distribution and in the country. Kazakhstan: central and western parts of the Betpak-Dala desert, Syrdarya Karatau, Boraldaïtau; Kyrgyzstan - foothills of the Fergana Range (Maimak River basin).
Habitat. Grows in small groups on rocky slopes of low mountains. Population. Data is lacking.
Limiting factors. Suffers from uncontrolled livestock grazing and cutting of plants for firewood. Seedlings and young plants are absent.
Cultivation. In botanical gardens of Almaty, Tashkent, and Dushanbe. Cultivated in the dendrological reserve of the Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic from 1955 to 1958. The plants entered the fruiting phase, but due to weak competitiveness with silver chingil, they were removed from the plantation.
Existing conservation measures. Included in the list of species protected by the state, approved by the Council of Ministers of the Kyrgyz SSR in 1975. Listed in the Red Book of the USSR (1984), and the Red Book of the Kyrgyz SSR (1985).
Recommended conservation measures. Clarify the plant stocks, organize a botanical reserve. Conduct repeated experimental sowings in the Botanical Garden with subsequent reintroduction to natural habitats.
Spireanthus, or Schrenk’s False Spirea
Spiraeanthus schrenkianus (Fisch. et Mey.) Maxim
Status: Critically Endangered (CR B2ab (iii)). It is a Middle Asian endemic representative of a small relict genus, a rare plant species known in Kyrgyzstan only by a sample from the Maimak vicinity (north-westernmost Kyrgyzstan at the Kazakh border). These plants occur in nature in small groups on stony low-montane slopes, flowering for 15-20 days in June, propagating by seeds, but juveniles do not occur, and their numbers in nature are unknown. The timber of this ornamental shrub is very nice and is valued by cabinet-makers. Cultivation in Bishkek Botanical Garden (1955-1958) was unsuccessful due to weak competitiveness with other shrubs. Limiting factors: cattle pasturage and felling (firewood cutting by people). It is necessary to elucidate the number of plants and create a botanical wildlife area near Maimak Railway Station, as well as to establish a plantation in culture for subsequent re-introduction.