Studies of the Malay Herbarium of Odoardo Beccari
25 October 2020 was the hundredth anniversary of the death of Odoardo Beccari (1843-1920), a Florentine explorer and multi-faceted naturalist and a prominent figure in Italian scientific culture. Because of the Covid restrictions, the celebrations in his honour were postponed to 2022, but the anniversary offered an opportunity to start a thorough study of his collections, now in full swing.
Herbarium of Malaysia (FI-HB)
One of the most important legacies of Odoardo Beccari is kept in the botanical collections preserved in Via La Pira, one of the most important in the world: over 16 thousand finds, collected during his travels in Asia and Oceania, which constitute the so-called “Erbario della Malesia.” This collection, together with the related “ancillary” collections (woods, fruits, seeds, plant products of ethnobotanic interest), represents a precious testimony to the original plant diversity of territories today deeply altered by human action. In addition, dozens of “reference” samples, that is, original specimen that were used for the description of new species for science, and that, as such, are still reference for scholars of those floral species.
The project
Until now, the scientific community had limited itself to drawing from the Herbarium of Malaysia information and ideas for specialized research, only on occasions. Since 2019, however, the same conservators of the Museum, with the decisive support of both Italian and foreign specialists, have started an analytical study of the collection.
The first objective is to establish a digital database and a complete register of samples. It has been decided to proceed by large systematic groups, progressively digitizing all the finds, that is, recording all the label data and acquiring high resolution images according to international standards, which themselves are in the process of being published on the web pages of the University Museum System. Where possible, unidentified or poorly identified material is subject to critical review by specialists and, at the same time, information on existing studies is collected for each group and “reference” materials not yet highlighted are identified. The first work on Zingiberales (212 samples, 98 taxa, 83 “reference” samples, 40 new designations), for example, will soon be published in Plant Biosystems.
Odoardo Beccari, biographical details in the volume “The Museum of Natural History of the University of Florence: the botanical collections” edited by Mauro Raffaelli (Firenze University Press).
SMA contact person: Lorenzo Cecchi
Last update
07.09.2021