Ornamental plant breeding enables the selection of cultivars with desired features from numerous genotypes; however, this process is time-consuming and resource-demanding. Aiming to establish a pre-selection protocol that can facilitate the selection of dwarf rose varieties, the connection between anatomical and histological characteristics and the vegetative growth of rose cultivars was examined. To assess the adaptive potential of the studied cultivars, intra-annual cambial dynamics were explored relative to the observed meteorological fluctuations during the growing season. The investigation included six garden rose cultivars from the ‘Reka’ and ‘Pixie’ collections, bred under semi-arid open-field conditions in Serbia. Plant height ranged from 20 to 68 cm, with differing growth habits and types. Vegetative growth was significantly correlated with the xylem/phloem ratio, the proportion of total vessel area relative to cross-sectional and xylem areas, vessel-related features, and porosity (correlation coefficients up to 0.78). Regeneration via cambial activity and the formation of false rings were observed in five of the six cultivars studied, with meteorological analysis suggesting that precipitation and temperature triggered cambial reactivation. This approach effectively targets key parameters in the selection of dwarf and climate-resilient rose cultivars, facilitating the development of reliable pre-selection criteria.

The paper analyses the influence of floristic structure, vegetation density and nutrient content on the occurrence and abundance of invasive species in aquatic vegetation communities in canal network in Serbia. The results of Shannon–Weaver index of diversity, index of evenness, Steinhaus index of floristic similarity, correlations between the identified plant species with invasive species and PCA analysis showed that nutrient content has a decisive role in the occurrence of invasive species in aquatic vegetation communities. Despite high diversity, uniformity and density of the stands, they were not efficient in preventing the occurrence of invasive species when the values of nutrient content in water (total phosphorus, N\({\text{H}}_{4}^{ + }\) and N\({\text{O}}_{3}^{ - }\)) were increased. In further research, it would be interesting to determine the impact of other factors which affect the integrity of these communities and thus increase their invasibility.