The plant collections at the University of Padua include several herbaria of phanerogams, cryptogams, lichens, fungi, galls, some collections of seeds, wood samples, diatoms and macroalgae, several wax models and didactic boards. They consist of several thousands of specimens which were collected mainly from the end of the 18th century to the first half of the 20th century by the scholars of the Hortus Patavinus (e.g. A. Forti, R. de Visiani, P.A. Saccardo) and later by the researchers of the Botany Institute of the University. Lists of collections have been produced in 1895, in 1947 and recently in 1995 by different authors, but the accessibility is quite problematic and there is no complete updated catalogue. The collections are now held outside the research structure and are used mainly for didactic purposes. This way they risk losing their fundamental role in modern plant researches, like systematics, biodiversity and molecular genetics. We think that a better accessibility to the collections could save our precious academic heritage. The first step we are taking is the production of an electronic database of both the collections themselves and the specimens of the most important of them. We aim at increased collaboration with research institutes.
Are the plant collections held at the University of Padua still useful? A project to “put the collections to work for conservation”
CLEMENTI, MORENO;MIOLA, ANTONELLA
2012
Abstract
The plant collections at the University of Padua include several herbaria of phanerogams, cryptogams, lichens, fungi, galls, some collections of seeds, wood samples, diatoms and macroalgae, several wax models and didactic boards. They consist of several thousands of specimens which were collected mainly from the end of the 18th century to the first half of the 20th century by the scholars of the Hortus Patavinus (e.g. A. Forti, R. de Visiani, P.A. Saccardo) and later by the researchers of the Botany Institute of the University. Lists of collections have been produced in 1895, in 1947 and recently in 1995 by different authors, but the accessibility is quite problematic and there is no complete updated catalogue. The collections are now held outside the research structure and are used mainly for didactic purposes. This way they risk losing their fundamental role in modern plant researches, like systematics, biodiversity and molecular genetics. We think that a better accessibility to the collections could save our precious academic heritage. The first step we are taking is the production of an electronic database of both the collections themselves and the specimens of the most important of them. We aim at increased collaboration with research institutes.Pubblicazioni consigliate
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