Herbarium
The Herbarium of the Institute of Botany is part of a worldwide network of collections (abbreviated as PRA in the Index Herbariorum) and the Czech Republic’s first institute herbarium to acquire a license for dealing with (e.g., sending and receiving) specimens of species on the CITES list (registration number CZ 001). The herbarium is fundamental for the Institute’s research. Above all, it archives voucher specimens from the Institute’s botanical studies, provides methodical support for projects and collects material of groups on which research is planned or under way at the Institute. This is why the herbarium contains mainly Monocot angiosperms and taxa with specific modes of reproduction (e.g., apomixis), especially from regions from which it is difficult to obtain material (Central Asia, the Caucasus, North Africa, India, New Caledonia, Australia, North and South America etc.). The comparative herbarium of Central European synanthropic flora is another indispensable collection. The dendrological collection is among the world's most significant collections of material from conifers (includes cones, bark, wood and twigs). The collections of diaspores of the families Fabaceae and Umbelliferae are also noteworthy. The L. Klimeš’ collection of plants from Ladakh (Western Himalayas, India) is unique in its size and comprehensiveness. The lichen collection of A. Vězda, a leading lichenologist, is another important asset of the herbarium; it consists of 35 000 sheets. There is at present over 250 000 sheets in the herbarium collections of the Institute. A new database system, HERBMAN, is being used for documentation. The herbarium is currently cooperating with those in other Institutes in a number of documentation projects. Selected collections are being documented with the help of modern photographic technology and made available to the public in digital form.
Currently the herbarium is connected into a series of documentary projects on which the Institute of Botany cooperates with other major collections. Using the latest photographic technology, selected collections are being documented and made accessible to the scientific public in digital form.
Contacts:
Jan Štěpánek (Head of the Herbarium; , phone: +420 271 015 270)
Pollen Specimen Collection of the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences
The reference collection of pollen specimen can be found in the
Department of Vegetation Ecology in the building on street na Poříčí 3b. Members of this department use this collection to contribute to various research projects; upon agreement, selected preparates from this collection can be made available for viewing to anyone interested. The collection has been created gradually since the 1950s. In the 1990s the expansion and regular renewal of the collection was interrupted because of the several moves the department had to make. Currently the collection is being renewed and again used in palynological research.
Palynologists are the ones to most often use the collection mainly to verify the accuracy of determined fossils, subfossils and recent pollen grains and spores. The collection contains persistent microscopic specimens of pollen grains from more than 1000 plant species in the Czech Republic and other European countries. Ideally, the collection was started to cover all of the species included in the Flora of the Czech Republic and the surrounding areas. The collection also includes some “exotic” taxa, e.g.,
Carya,
Engelhardtia,
Nyssa and
Tsuga that can be found in tertiary sediments even in our country.
As with all other collections, the pollen specimen collection requires maintenance and renewal. The persistent specimens dry out with time and need to be replaced with new ones. Currently, an overview of a third of the collection has shown that 1/3 of the specimens reviewed should be replaced, 1/3 is in usable condition and 1/3 is in good condition. Renewal of a substantial part of the collection is planned in the near future.
Seed and Fruit Collection of the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences
The seed collection that was established and for the most part created by Kamil Rybníček and Eliška Rybníčková in 1957 serves as comparative material to determine fossil seeds of plants found in paleoecological profiles. Potentially the collection can also be used to determine even seeds from seed bank studies. Anyone interested can also have access to view these items. The collection is deposited in the
Department of Vegetation Ecology. Most seeds were collected in the Czech and Slovak Republics but collections from other parts of Europe (e.g., Austria, Hungary, Finland) and from other continents can also be found here. Over 70 collectors assisted in creating this collection. The oldest collection is from 1870, and the most recent is from 2004.
The collection is listed in a card catalogue that in 2006 was transferred to an electronic database. During this process the validity of the actual specimens present was verified. Over 4482 specimens from approximately 1000 taxa (species, subspecies, aggregates, and varieties) from 165 vascular plant families were found in the database as of the 22
nd of August 2008. The electronic database contains the taxa names valid when the plants were collected and the currently used name listed under items. An abridged version of the electronic catalogue can be downloaded
here.
Contacts:
Kamil Rybníček: phone: +420 543 215 774
Petra Hájková:
Radim Hédl: , phone: +420 543 211 562
