Osnabrück Botanical Expeditions to Mongolia

Three botanical expeditions to Mongolia have been undertaken by the Botany Department of the University of Osnabrück in cooperation with the Botany Department of the National Mongolian University of Ulaanbaatar. The first expedition in 2000 took us to the Mongolian Altay, the second in 2001 to the Gobi and Gobi Altay, and the third in 2010 to East Mongolia including the Khingan Mts. (Numrug). In 2000, we were the first botanists being allowed to enter the border area between China and Russia in the Mongolian Altay since a long time, because this had been a prohibited area for decades. We were again lucky in 2010 getting the permission to visit the Numrug protected area in East Mongolia, which has rarely been visited by botanists so far. In the course of the three expeditions, a total of 1650 specimens of vascular plants were collected for the herbarium OSBU of the University of Osnabrück, and a similar amount of taxa for the herbarium UBU of the Botany Dept. of the National University of Mongolia. Some of the collected specimens were first records for the country of Mongolia, and others were new for certain floristic regions and Aymags of Mongolia, thus widening the knowledge on distribution areas of many species. We also collected material for the Loki Schmidt Gene Bank for Wild Plants, for the Brassiceae Seed Gene Bank, and for the Allium collection housed at the Botanical Garden of the University of Osnabrück. Seed and living material were also collected for the Botany Dept. of the University of Ulaanbaatar