Search results for "Herbaria"

Phycological Herbaria as a Useful Tool to Monitor Long-Term Changes of Macroalgae Diversity: Some Case Studies from the Mediterranean Sea

2020

The Mediterranean Sea is currently experiencing a decline in the abundance of several key species, as a consequence of anthropogenic pressures (e.g., increase in human population, habitat modification and loss, pollution, coastal urbanization, overexploitation, introduction of non-indigenous species and climate change). Herbaria and natural history collections are certainly fundamental for taxonomic studies, but they are also an invaluable, if currently underestimated, resource for understanding ecological and evolutionary responses of species to environmental changes. Macroalgae herbarium collections, which are really consistent (ranging from 200,000 to approximately 500,000 specimens) in …

L’Erbario informatico del Dipartimento di Botanica di Catania

2004

The Herbarium electronic archives of the Department of Botany of Catania University are here illustrated. A Microsoft Access database has been developed for digital cataloguing of specimens from historical and recent Herbarium collections. A simple interface allows a fast consultation by quick ordering, retrivial and search of data in all records of the catalogue. Digital high definition photographs of the exsiccata are included in the Herbarium archives and linked to the relative record.

First record of Tamarix meyeri (Tamaricaceae) for western Europe

2012

Abstract Field investigations and herbaria reference work carried out in Italy and Spain allowed us to identify wild and cultivated plants of Tamarix meyeri, a new species from western Europe. This small tree is characterized by tetramerous, rarely pentamerous flowers and a paralophic disk.

The neglected herbarium of Emanuele Taranto Rosso (Sicily, 1801-1887)

2018

The neglected Herbarium of Emanuele Taranto Rosso (Sicily, 1801-1887). Emanuele Taranto Rosso, eclectic naturalist of the XIX Century, founded a scientific and didactic centre of Natural History and Archaeology in Caltagirone, one of the towns in the province of Catania in eastern Sicily (southern Italy). In this paper, we report and evaluate the size of his herbarium donated to the centre. According to the published catalogue, originally the Herbarium of Taranto Rosso comprised 776 specimens, which included wild and cultivated plants collected by this skillful researcher in the surroundings of Caltagirone. In addition, the Herbarium contained several specimens purchased or exchanged with o…

Names of Italian vascular plants published by Michele Lojacono Pojero

2014

Michele Lojacono Pojero (1853-1919) is among the most prolific Italian authors of plant names of his era. A list is presented of the names of 581 new Italian (almost invariably Sicilian) vascular plant taxa he published (303 species, 272 varieties, 6 formae), with reference to existing lectotype designations.

Michele Lojacono-Pojero’s Centuriae in the herbaria and archives in Geneva

2012

Lojacono, well known as the author of a Flora sicula, offered for sale and distributed various exsiccata. In particular, he prepared 7 Centuriae of Plantae siculae rariores (1879-1884) and 4 Centuriae of Plantae italicae selectae (1885-1888). Swiss botanists (Barbey, Boissier, Burnat) were among his first customers. From their legacy, printed, mostly autographic inventories of all but one of these Centuriae (with only the second Italian Centuria missing) came to the archives of the Conservatoire botanique in Geneva, some in two different versions. These rare documents have been dated with the aid of mail stamps and of correspondence kept in the same archives, and transcripts of all of them …

The Herbarium of Antoine Bras (1803-1883)

2012

Bras, distinguished French amateur botanist and author of a catalogue of the flora of his home province (département de l’Aveyron), built a considerable personal herbarium through 50 years of active collecting (1833-1882). That herbarium, long believed lost, was auctioned in 2008 and acquired by the first author for the Palermo Herbarium (PAL-Gr). Its c. 25,000 specimens are being mounted and databased, with a view of making the digital images and label data available for online consultation. An analysis based on a first sample of 1550 specimens is presented, with explanations of Bras’ labelling and numbering systems and a list of other collectors and correspondents (81 to date) who contrib…

Notes on the status and the current spread of Viburnum tinus L. (Viburnaceae) in Sicily (Italy)

2021

The authors carried out a multi-disciplinary research in order to clarify the native status of Viburnum tinus in Sicily and update the knowledge about its current regional distribution. With this purpose, a large amount of scientific papers on forestry, botany and palaeo- and archaeobotany was consulted; more useful data issued from papers focused on local historical gardens, from archives and from herbarium specimens. The available data suggest that most of the extant nuclei may issue from the recent colonization of plants introduced just few centuries ago. Although the status of the stands found in some warm and humid sites in the surroundings of the city of Palermo and on the Sicani Moun…

GREUTER HERBARIUM AND LIBRARY TRANSFERRED TO PALERMO (SICILY)

2009

From common and used to rare and forgotten: Past and present distribution of the archaeophyte Euphorbia lathyris L. (Euphorbiaceae) in southern Italy…

2019

Our study aimed at clarifying the current and previous occurrence, distribution and status (native vs. introduced) of Euphorbia lathyris L., the caper spurge, in S Italy and Sicily: most of the recent Italian floras and checklists, in fact, do not report this species for this area. To do this, a multi-disciplinary research was carried out taking into account not only botanical but also ethnobotanical and dialectological sources and a survey of the main herbaria of central and southern Italy. Our results point out that E. lathyris was much more frequent, well-known and commonly used in the whole southern Italy and in Sicily until 2-3 centuries ago, and that it probably experienced isolated c…