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Botanical gardens are dedicated to establishing and protecting native plant collections. They are also an invaluable resource for conserving plant species worldwide. In botanical gardens it is tried to collect and cultivate – in small scales, various plant species representing the plant vegetation of different geographical regions of the world. The collection of Europe in 2.4 ha is one of the non-native collections in the national botanical garden of Iran. The here-presented project started in 2016 and continued for 4 years to enrichment diversity of the plant species of this collection. To do so, several originally European plant species, which can commonly be found in Iran were collected from different geographical regions of the country. Additionally, European native plant species cultivated in the other collections of the garden were propagated and planted in this collection. A total of 48 tree species and shrub, and 92 herb plant species had been established prior to the project. During the project, 36 tree species and shrubs, and 138 herb species were added to the collection. In total, 174 plant species were cultivated, of which 79.4% (9.4% annual, 1.4% biennial, and 89.1% perennial plant species) are weed species, and 20.6% are different tree and shrub species. These species belong to 45 plant families. Within the herb species, the families Laminiaceae (26 species, 18.84%) and Caryophyllaceae (23 species, 16.66%) are most abundant most. The families Rosaceae (12 species, 33.3%) and Fagaceae (4 species, 11.1%) are the most abundant species among tree and shrub species. Currently, a total of 230 herb species and 84 tree and shrub species are preserved in the collection of Europe. Moreover, 16 ornamental plants have been propagated and cultivated in this collection.Keywords: Europe collection, Enrichment, National botanical garden of Iran, plant species
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