Макарова, О. А. Фенологический атлас растений / Н. В. Поликарпова, О. А. Макарова ; М-во природ. ресурсов и экологии Рос. Федерации, Федер. гос. бюджет. учреждение «Гос. природ. заповедник «Пасвик» ; [худож.: Хохлов В. А. ; пер.: Кислова О. С.]. - Рязань : Голос губернии, 2016.

178 A phenological atlas of plants Over years of experience in phenological observations we have often seen observers, especially beginners, having difficulties in identification of specific phenophases in plants. In Europe, a standard list of phenophases from the BBCH coding system has for many years been applied to wild plants and farmed crops. The abbreviation derives from the name of the German institute Biologische Bundesanstalt, Bundessortenamt and CHemical industry (Growing stage.., 2001; Meier et al., 2009). In this widely used European system, the entire growth process, starting with the beginning which is assigned number 1, is split into individual phases (100 characteristics), with drawings to illustrate each phase. Application of this unified set of phases and the common code system allows comparable data to be collected throughout Europe. This system has been in active use in the neighboring Finland, where they have their own names for phenophases as well, but these are matched to the pan-European system (Kubin et al., 2007). Some of them are provided as examples in appendix 1. No such universal reference manual is available in Russia, although phenophase coding has indeed been attempted. What complicates the matter even more is that phenophase names and descriptions differ among the proposed methods, causing confusion during surveys. In field work even a seasoned observer may err. Some observers tend to underrate phenomena or record earlier dates, whereas others are more likely to overrate. Beginners are naturally even more challenged. Therefore, we have long pondered on the idea of writing a manual on phenological observations. The intention was however to make the book graphic rather than descriptive. From the very start, talks with teachers and schoolchildren within the “ Phenology of the North Calotte" project made it clear that one can hardly do without comprehensible descrip tions and images for all plants in the list. The drawings and summaries available at the time were not an adequate solution. At first, the Pasvik Reserve started digital scanning of live plants in all phenophases. Then, in 2002-2003, it was a ground-breaking initiative. The aspiration was to display the material for at least several species as a kind of “Mendeleev’s periodic table”, visualizing the main phenophases of the selected plants for their doubt-free identification. It took just two or three years to collect the database of scanned images covering the entire growing season.