The Herbarium

The National Herbarium of Seychelles came into existence in the early 1960’s.

The first collection contained specimens from Mr Charles Jeffrey (1961), who initially was collecting for the KEW herbarium but graciously left duplicate specimens behind. The herbarium has  specimens dating from as far back as 1840 thanks to the good collaborations with the “Museum d’Histoire Naturelle de Paris”.

In the 1980s, Dr Francis Friedmann and Dr Anne Robertson supplemented this small debut collection by first identifying the main plant species of the Seychelles.

Subsequently they respectively collected extensively across local plant families.

A special mention is made to Dr Bruno Senterre and Mr Charles Morel and the team , who from 2008 onwards, has done the bulk of additional collections and identification across other plant groups.

The National Herbarium is presently housed at Bel Etang , Mont Fleuri

It comprises a collection of around 6000 specimens of flowering plants (Dicots and Monocots) and ferns

In 2012, In order to properly record information about all the plants present in Seychelles, a local civil society, the Plant Conservation Action group (PCA) joined forces with the National Herbarium to work on a two-year programme, which became known as ‘The Herbarium Project’.

One of the aim was to:

Creating a database of plant knowledge, using many sources of information: including information from historical specimens, books and scientific papers, and also local knowledge.

Result : ‘. http://www.seychellesplantgallery.com

 

 

 

 

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