Tourists who travel paths of Ukraine, tour guides love to talk about Satan-berry (dogwood), telling the story of O.Vishnia. Allah, wanting to bring order to the land, gathered all living creatures and ordered to choose a plant from which then eat. Ingenious Satan liked dogwood, which from early spring blossomed luxuriantly. "My tree is ripe earlier, I will sell the fruits and will be rich" - he thought. The spring passed, the summer ended - people and animals harvested from their gardens, vegetable gardens, and Satan-berry all remained green. The owner blew on it from all his forces: it reddened, but did not taste better. Angry, he refused from his property, but the people after the first frosts willingly savored juicy fruits. However, then Satan revenged, but that's another story.
In KPI there is a plant - a relative of those berries. It is named horizontal dogwood (cotoneaster horizontalis) and pleases eyes with purple variety to the Museum Square near the monument Paton. Take a closer look. Cotoneaster is a kind of thornless shrubs, or small trees of the family Rosaceae (Rosaceae). The name comes from the Greek "cotonea" - quince, "aster" - looks similarity leaves quince and one species of cotoneaster. It the collections of botanical gardens, this plant has been known since 1864. The family cotoneaster is quite diverse and includes more than 200 species. Its birthplace - the Northern and Western China. You can meet it in Europe, Asia and North Africa. Cotoneaster has deciduous, semi-evergreen and evergreen; height from 0.2 m to 4; crown are prostrate, spreading, narrow, or such that creeps. It is valued for its good crown with dark green glossy leaves, autumn turns into a bright palette of many colors, from bright red to brown. Shrub is undemanding to soil, frost and drought-resistant. It thrives in the city due to its gas and dust durability.
Cotoneaster are indispensable in creating hedges. It is easily formed, and kept its shape and can be replanted at any time of the season. In addition, in the late summer its decorative effect is further enhanced by a large number of bright red or black fruits that remain on the branches almost to spring. The fruits are not poisonous and attract birds. This is an excellent groundcover, especially for rocky gardens, slope reinforcement, cascading greenery. At one point the bushes live up to 50 years. In Ukraine there are the following kinds of the cotoneaster - brilliant, Dummer, Franchet, Aronia, normal, many-flowered, pressed, Mongolian, aquifolium and others.
Back to KPI, Cotoneaster horizontal - is an evergreen shrub up to 50 cm, with horizontally outstretched pinnately branched stems, reminiscent of fish spine, located in the same plane. Shoots grow by layers. Width reaches 1.5-2 m. It begins to have fruits after 6-8 years. It has a very elegant form, it can not be confused with any other species.