The Indian Virtual Herbarium, the biggest virtual database of flora in the country, is generating a lot of interest and turning out to be an eye-catching endeavour.
- While herbarium specimens are considered important tools for plant taxonomy, conservation, habitat loss and even climate change, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently described the Indian Virtual Herbarium as an example of how digital tools can help us connect to our roots.
- In the Mann Ki Baat episode on July 31, Mr. Modi spoke about the novel initiative, and said that the herbarium was an interesting collection of plants and preserved parts of plants.
- Developed by scientists of the Botanical Survey of India (BSI), the herbarium was inaugurated by Union Minister of Environment Forest and Climate Change Bhupendra Yadav in Kolkata on July 1, 2022.
- There are approximately three million plant specimens in the country which are with different herbaria located at zonal centres of the BSI and at the Central National Herbarium at Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden at Howrah in West Bengal.
- The Indian Virtual Herbarium is also deeply linked with the botanical history of the country. The portal provides most valuable historical collections of botanists like William Roxburgh, Nathaniel Wallich and Joseph Dalton Hooker, considered the founding fathers of botany in India.
- The digital herbarium has some of the oldest botanical specimens dating as early as 1696. Cyperus procerus was collected between June 15 and 20, 1696, near Chennai.
- The oldest type specimen Lepidagathis scariosa was collected in 1817 by Robert Wight.
- Type specimens are those collections that help in new discoveries and are considered of great significance by botanists and taxonomists.
- A cryptogam (scientific name Cryptogamae) is a plant or a plant-like organism that reproduces by spores, without flowers or seeds such as; fern, moss, algae, or fungus.
- Botanical Survey of India (BSI) houses about 1600 Type specimens of different groups of Cryptogams including Algae, Bryophytes, Pteridophytes, Lichen and Fungi.
