The Collections
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The Plant Collections
The more than 50,000 specimens
are arranged systematically by family
for ease of comparison and retrieval,
and provide valuable taxonomic, cultural
and historical information.
The earliest specimen is a Crueger collection
dated 1842.
For convenience the collection is also
divided into 4 groups. These are:
- The native flora, with samples from
the major plant divisions -
- Thallophyta (algae and fungi)
- Bryophyta (liverworts and mosses)
- Pteridophyta (ferns and fern allies)
- Spermatophyta (gymnosperms and
angiosperms)
- The plants introduced into the country
as ornamentals or for cultivation, or
by chance.
- The West Indian collection, which
includes samples from Belize, Guyana
and Suriname, as well as the islands
of the Eastern Caribbean, most of which
were acquired by exchange.
- The special collection of Theobroma
and Herrania species inherited
from the Anglo-Columbian Cocoa Collecting
Expedition of 1952-53 to the tributaries
of the Amazon and Magdalena rivers in
the Andes by staff from the I.C.T.A.
Cocoa Research Scheme. This is the only
collecton of its kind in the Southern
Hemisphere, and will be useful in relation
to the cacao germ-plasm collecton held
at St. Augustine.
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