Keith P. Tomlinson
Department of Botany, Bishop Museum
Newsletter of the Hawaiian Botanical Society 1992
During 1991 & 1992 several thousand new specimens were added to the world collection of the Herbarium Pacificum as a large backlog was processed. This project was made possible by a National Science Foundation facilities grant (BSR -89-12364). Over one hundred genera and six families were added to the existing collections. Many, but not all, of these new specimens arrived from the Pacific, Asia, and Australia.
Taxa from outside the Pacific and Asia include several valuable “region specific’ collections from a variety of habitats. The largest of these collections come from various locations in South America. Representative specimens from the lowland tropics of Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, and Colombia were included. In addition, several highland species were part of this material. Of particular interest are numerous ericad genera from Montane cloud forest and Paramo habitats in the Andes. A new family to the Herbarium, the Rhabdodendraceae, arrived with these collections.
A large and well documented collection from tropical Africa was also processed as part of the backlog. The vast majority of these specimens were from the equatorial west African nation of Gabon. While the tropics of Africa are recognized as floristically less complex than Asia or South America most of the specimens were not represented in our collections before this. Twenty-seven genera new to our collections arrived as part of this material. Nearly all of these are endemic to the African tropics.
Our collection from temperate regions expanded as the backlog was processed. The largest component came from the former Soviet Union and included a broad spectrum of herbaceous flora from the Grassland Steppe of the western Ukraine and several new accessions of north temperate genera. Later in the year we processed another large European collection of herbaceous plants from the low Arctic of Scandinavia. Notable among these specimens were large collections of northern range Scrophulariaceae and Lamiaceae.
Specimens from the tropical Pacific, South East Asia and Australia were the largest additions to the world collection. Substantial collections arriving as gifts and exchange from Australia contained examples from the endemic family Davidsoniaceae. Predictably, rich collections of the Myrtaceae were part of this material too. Many additions of Australian Eucalyptus species have been added to the world collection.
Several excellent duplicate specimens have arrived from South East Asia. Particularly good material from Kalimantan, Sulawesi and various islands in the Banda Sea have provided many genera new to the herbarium. Similarly, new material from the Philippines has arrived. Most of these specimens come from the archipelago’s northern islands of Luzon and Mindoro.
Accessions from the Pacific have been dominated by new material from the island of New Guinea. These collections come primarily from the work associated with the National Cancer Institute (NCI). NCI has sponsored several organizations to collect in tropical areas throughout the world in an effort to screen a large number of plants for potential medicinal use (Slack 1992). Research into anti-AIDS and anti-cancer compounds is the focal point of this program. Bishop Museum is the organization responsible for collections in Papua New Guinea. Collecting in Irian Jaya on the western half of the island is being conducted jointly by the University of Illinois at Chicago, Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University and Herbarium Bogoriense in Bogor Indonesia. The Herbarium Pacificum is also receiving duplicates from the Irian Jaya collections.
The combined acquisition of these specimens has precipitated a complete reorganization of the herbarium’s Melanesian collections. Formerly, these collections had been filed under the region recognized simply as ‘Melanesia’ which included the following island groups: New Guinea, Solomon’s, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Fiji. While maintaining the overall circumspection, our new filing system defines the herbarium’s Melanesian collection more accurately from geographic and floristic perspectives. The new system will recognize three sub-regions within Melanesia. They will include: New Guinea (including the Bismark and Louisiade archipelagoes), New Caledonia (including the Loyalty Islands), Solomon Islands (including Bougainville), Vanuatu and Fiji. Genus covers will reflect these subdivisions.
The new system recognizes the complex and differing phytogeography of Melanesia as a region. The land area is approximately 958,000 square km. Just under 90% consists of the island of New Guinea (Brookfield & Hart 1970). Elevations range from sea level to over 4900 m in Irian Jaya and over 3950 m in Papua New Guinea. These high summits support the only alpine flora associated with equatorial glaciers in the Pacific basin (Hope et al. 1976). The region’s exceptionally diverse topography, complex geology and tectonic history have fostered high rates of vascular plant endemism. Accordingly, the use of subregions within the herbarium’s Melanesian collections will provide a more accessible and logical documentation of the region’s complex physical geography and associated flora. Van Balgooy (1971) recognized 140 endemic genera in New Guinea and 95-100 in New Caledonia. These figures alone clearly warrant division of specimens from these two Melanesian islands. Moreover, this system is largely consistent with Takhtajan’s (1986) floristic divisions of Melanesia, particularly with regard to New Caledonia.
The combined addition of all specimens brings the total world collection to just over 175,000 sheets. Particularly large additions have been made to the Poaceae, Rubiaceae, Anacardiaceae, Annonaceae, Myrtaceae, Euphorbiaceae and Sapindaceae.
Literature Cited
Brookfield, H., Hart, D. 1971. Melanesia: A Geographical Interpretation of an island World. Methuen & Co. London.
Hope, G.S., Peterson, J.A., Radok, U., Allison, I. 1976. The Equatorial Glaciers of New Guinea. A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam.
Slack, G. 1992. Searching for Tropical Cures. Pacific Discovery. Vol. 45.(2):4-5
Takhtajan, A. 1986. Floristic Regions of the World. University of California Press. Berkeley.
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