Kew Herbarium
Fernando Rivadavia Lopes (ferndriv@usp.br)
Mon, 29 Jan 1996 17:02:39 -0300 (GRNLNDST)
Dear Pekka,
> .. Fernando, do you really mean ..herbarium at Kew..
> For my knowledge herbarium is a collection of dead plants ;)
> ..Pekka
>
> ______________________________________________________
> Pekka Ala-Siuru
> Senior Analyst, Embedded Knowledge-Based Systems
> VTT Electronics, P.O.Box 1100, FIN-90571, Oulu,Finland
> Tel. +358 81 551 2461, Telefax +358 81 551 2320
> http://www.ele.vtt.fi/
That is exactly what herbarium means, and for those of you who
don't know, the Kew Herbarium is one of the biggest in the world. I did
spend an afternoon visiting the famous Kew gardens, but most of my time at
Kew was spent inside the herbarium, analysing dead plant material. The CP
collections at Kew are really fantastic and there was much material of
S.American CP species.
Unfortunately it is not possible to have all of those millions of
herborized species in cultivation. In a herbarium you at least have the
chance of seeing species you might never see in cultivation, much less in
the wild. Not to mention that many important TYPE herbaria are deposited
at places like Kew or Paris, and the importance of studying this material
is without measure for botanists.
Unfortunately again, in many of these cases the TYPE material is
deposited in countries other than that of their origin, as is the case of
most of the Brazilian species collected and described by European
botanists like Saint Hilaire who visited Brazil early last century. Thus
botanists from all over the world, including Brazil, are often forced to
travel to Europe to study TYPE material of their native species.
It is not always easy to receive these specimens on loan because
of their botanical and historic value. Luckily for you Pekka, if you ever
need to study herbarium material, you are not that far away from many of
the most important herbaria in the world.
Not to mention that Europe's railway system makes me green with
envy every time I think of the collecting trips I go on, travelling on
terrible roads and spending up to 3 days inside old busses, due to the
enormous distances here in Brazil. Field collecting is not often as fun
much less as safe as many of you may imagine.
Fernando Rivadavia
Sao Paulo, Brasil