The casket of tropical grasses performs 100 years

And 'the only herbarium tropical theme existing in Europe and has been invited, only Italian together with the Museum of Natural History, University of Florence, al Global Plant Initiative di Panama, which is the summit of the world's most important consortiums of herbaria.

We're talking about the Study Centre Tropical Herbarium (CSET) University of Florence, che si trova in via La Pira 4, e che si occupa dello studio della flora e della vegetazione dei Paesi tropicali e che celebra i 100 years of life.

A backdrop of greenery which preserves 230 thousand exhibits as well as a documentation icono-photographic result of various scientific missions carried out in tropical areas since its foundation.

In detail, will be kept beyond 3.000 campioni typus, or botanical finds on which have been described for the first time the plant species.

Among the curiosities collected in numerous campaigns, the precursor to the popular pomegranate and the collection of 18.000 pezzi provenienti dal Venezuela creata dal Missionario Padre Giuseppe Bono, only for the value of the materials collected and yet to be studied.

The concentration of dried tropical plants in one place also has the advantage of being able to optimize their use for research purposes bio-molecular.

La fondazione risale al 1904 by Romualdo Pirotta as the Colonial Herbarium and Museum based in Rome, but in the 1914 is transferred to Florence with the name of the Royal Colonial Herbarium of Florence.

In 1969 such research facility changed its name to Tropical Herbarium of Florence and finally in 2004 in the present: Centro Studi Tropical Herbarium.

Keep the most important historical collections of dried plant specimens collected in former Italian colonies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

At this important group of collections must be added those collected in
scientific missions or through external acquisitions over the past 30 years, with particular reference to the Arabian Peninsula (Oman, Yemen), Eastern Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda), West Africa (Angola, Sierra Leone), Central America (Panama), South America (Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina), Australia.

The material kept at the CSET is available to Italian and foreign specialists in tropical flora and vegetation.

Users are foreign majority and this has allowed in the past collaborations initiatives and research projects such as, Flora e dell'Etiopia Eritrea, the Flora of Somalia, and more recently, the study of critical groups of Mesoamerican Flora and ethno-botanical study of African plants.

The CSET is part of the Department of Biology, University of Florence and its collections are available for interdisciplinary studies in the field of Biology, over that of other scientific fields including medicine, Pharmacology and Herbal Medicine.

The CSET is also a training facility for students interested in the management of museum collections of herbarium, besides the study of groups
Critics of tropical plants, through internship and thesis and participates in the organization of the European Master of first level Tropical biodiversity and ecosystems (TROPIMUNDO).

The research activity is currently concentrated on the study of the flora of Ethiopia together with the University of Addis Ababa, with which the CSET has
signed two cooperation agreements intercultural, and to that of Copenhagen. Un altro filone è dedicato alla flora della Repubblica di Panama, con la cui Università il Centro ha un accordo di collaborazione.

Il centenario è stato festeggiato con una giornata di studi, realized with the contribution of the Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze, which was held Friday 3 October Palazzo Incontri in Florence, with assistance from the Vice President of the Ente Cassa Pierluigi Rossi Ferrini, Deputy Mayor Cristina Giachi, Rector of the University of Florence Alberto Tesi, the President of the Academy of Georgofili Giampiero Maracchi, the Director of the Department of Biology of the University of Florence Marco Bazzicalupo, over that of leading scholars from around the world.

Michael Lattanzi

By the number 36 – The Year of 22/10/2014