XVI International Botanical Congess

The Voronezh district is a typical and a largest (52.4 thousand sq. km) part of Chernozem region of Russia. The share of ploughed field reaches here 80% in area, but in spite of this a rather high natural variety of territory is kept. So, flora reaches here almost 2000 species of vascular plants. Landscapes of the forest-steppe and steppe natural zones, their western and eastern climatic variants, loam, sandy and cretaceous differences of steppe vegetation are submitted. However there are only 2 rather large reserves on the territory, in which wood communities are protected mainly. The typical zone steppe vegetation is submitted here by small and casual fragments. There is only one really the steppe reserve (zapovednik) ADivnorgorie@ (1 thousand ha, 652 species) on cretaceous elevations. New economic situation allow to put a problem of increase of the protected territories, particularly steppe areas, with 1 up to 3%.