10
UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 3 JUNE, 2018
NATIONAL HERBARIUM 200
TH
ANNIVERSARY
Yasmin Baksh-Comeau was appointed Curator of
the Herbarium in 1980.
She had recently graduated
from the UWI in Botany and Chemistry: it was her
first job, became her only job, and fostered a lifelong
passion, a love of living trees and the comforts they
provide. Even as relics, the trees are useful. As Baksh-
Comeau wrote succinctly in a recent issue of UWI
Today, the museum collection serves a valuable
purpose, “using the dead to inform the living.”
“Taking on the role of curator was a challenge.
There was one room with tables and cupboards. The
collection was in various stages of decay. There were
boxes of unprocessed, unmounted specimens. Some of
themounted specimens were as old as 1842; everything
was deteriorating. I had one technician inherited from
The Royal Botanic Gardens in Port of Spain was established in 1818.
It was a living site for the study of trees, particularly
those that were relocated here from around the tropical world. The Gardens’ museum partner is the National Herbarium
of Trinidad and Tobago. Two centuries of plant collections – one living, the other dead – were celebrated on May 22, 2018,
World Biodiversity Day.
Yasmin Baksh-Comeau
talks about how the two collections complement each other.
Plants and the People who love them
B Y P A T G A N A S E
the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture (ICTA).
“What’s the use of a herbarium?This is an archival
collection of plant specimens.These samples say ‘I was
here. I existed.’ How do we know the dodo existed?
We have pictures or relics; we have something that
is the proof of existence. That’s what these specimens
represent.”
Baksh-Comeau refers us to Vicki Funk’s (US
National Herbarium) treatise 100 Uses For An
Herbarium: “Herbaria, dried pressed plant specimens
and their associated collections data, ancillary
collections (e.g. photographs) and librarymaterials, are
remarkable and irreplaceable sources of information
about plants and the world they inhabit. They provide
the comparative material that is essential for studies in
taxonomy, systematics, ecology, anatomy, morphology,
conservation biology, biodiversity, ethnobotany and
paleobiology, as well as being used for teaching and
by the public.”
The National Herbarium in St Augustine, Trinidad
is one way of accessing the history of our islands.
Baksh-Comeau says, “By the time the Spanish arrived,
the vegetation of these islands was already changing.
Colonisers brought in plants that transformed the
original landscape; of course, it was all for economic
gain.
“The Herbarium was established alongside the
Royal Botanic Gardens, which was a teaching site.
It was relocated to the ICTA in 1947, and eventually
was left to the UWI as custodian. It was Professor
Under a campus ackee tree, here are the dedicated staff members of the Herbarium. Front row, from left: Shahada Paltoo, Technical Assistant; Keisha Manaure, Research Assistant; Shane Ballah, Research Assistant.
Back row, from left: Prudence Roberts, Senior Secretary; Indira Maharaj, Cleaner; Necheia Falby-Peters, Technical Assistant; Beverly Adams-Baptiste, Library Assistant; Yasmin Baksh-Comeau, Curator; Professor
Howard Griffiths, visiting researcher.
PHOTO: ANN ALI
