Sep 21, 2017
Plant of the Day
Thursday 21 September 2017
Thank you to the Herbarium at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, UK, for an amazing tour last weekend. The botanist and specialist in Madagascar flora, Ian Derbyshire, kindly explained how the approximately 7 million pressed, dried and preserved specimens, collected from all around the world, are cared for and their value to science. The specimen in this box is Tahina spectabilis (dimaka, ‘self-destructive’ palm) a monocarpic (dies after flowering and setting seed) palm that remained undetected by science until 2007 even though it is large enough to be visible in satellite imagery. The hope is now to conserve this species through the distribution of seed and cultivation in botanic gardens.
Jill Raggett
