A unique African plant herbarium at CIRAD

"In addition to the herbarium, there were many boxes of plants kept in newspaper. Thankfully, at Baillarguet, the herbarium is now kept in an air conditioned building with the right degree of relative humidity, and all the specimens are in perfect condition ", explains Pierre Poilecot*, who returned from Chad in 2006 and has since brought the herbarium back to life. An IT specialist and a technician are also involved in the operation, one of them setting up a herbarium databank and labelling the samples (all 70 000 specimens), and the other mounting and sewing botanical specimens onto sheets.

The CIRAD herbarium, which is listed in the international herbarium index (ALF code) in the Index Herbariorum (New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York 10458-5126, USA), was recently assessed by Tela Botanica and judged to be "the finest in the region ". Its geographical specificity makes it unique. More than 300 collectors (researchers from North and South) have helped compile it to date. A duplicate of the CIRAD herbarium is stored in the appropriate conditions in the Farcha laboratory, N’djamena, Chad. Exchanges initiated by its first conservator, Jean-Pierre Lebrun, are continuing with the French Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands, the Geneva Conservatory and Botanical Garden and the University of Montpellier 2 (Institute of Botany).

A memory of biodiversity

The CIRAD ALF herbarium is open to the public and often visited by students. It is also a reference for botanists and for training courses in developing countries. Pierre Poilecot is often asked to recognize plants and conduct various studies. Most recently, a research unit from the Centre Européen de Recherche et d’Enseignement des Géosciences de l’Environnement (CEREGE) (CNRS/University of Aix-Marseille), working on a reconstitution of the paleoenvironments of prehistoric man in Chad and East Africa, asked to consult the herbarium. The laboratory is analysing and comparing plant micro-fossils (pollens and phytoliths) from plant fragments found in sediments recovered from boreholes, and current specimens in the CIRAD herbarium.
"Wars and conflicts have slowed, if not halted, collection operations, which used to be a regular occurrence in Africa ", adds Pierre Poilecot. "There is still land that is unexplored, as regards both animals and plants. In 2008, botanists in southern Africa discovered dozens of new species on a hill in Mozambique ".

Plans!

The ALF herbarium is directly linked to the Flotrop database, which lists almost 30 000 botanical records from dry tropical Africa, all of them georeferenced. The CIRAD herbarium team, which has big plans for the future, is currently compiling its own database, using a support provided by UMR AMAP (Botany and Computational Plant Architecture Joint Research Unit), and an image library.

A "Flowers of Africa" database is now on line, and a website on the Poaceae (grasses) and Cyperaceae of tropical Africa ("Cypoa") is being set up. The site will present some 500 species of these two families, in the form of photos, drawings and texts. An illustrated handbook presenting the ALF herbarium is also due to be published once the database is on line.

* Ecologist and botanist with UPR AGIRS (Animal and Integrated Risk Management Internal Research Unit)