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Publicatie
poster, Sofie De Smedt: A century of old confusion elucidated: a trace of the collapse of the Chinese imperial monarchy in the collection of the herbarium BR
Boekbijdrage - Hoofdstuk
The herbarium of Meise Botanic Garden (BR) is full of stories. One of these stories highlights the importance
of expert curation.
The Belgian agronomist Henri Homblé collected plants in Guangxi, China, in 1909-1910, while teaching in
Guilin. Troubles in the revolution year, 1911, in which the imperial monarchy was overthrown and the
republic established, meant Homblé had to flee. He came to Belgium where he deposited his collection at
BR, then moved to Congo. There Homblé was one of the first people to collect and document the flora of
Katanga.
Many Homblé specimens were described as taxonomic novelties; 107 tropical African plant species are
named after him. His incompletely labelled Chinese collections were erroneously considered as collected in
Katanga. This supposed African origin has led to confusion with regard to the identification, and even
resulted in the description of four species believed to be new for science.
Robbrecht E., De Smedt S., Goetghebeur P., Stoffelen P. & Verloove F. (2021) Four flowering plant species
described from Katanga (Democratic Republic of Congo) are based on specimens collected in Guangxi,
China, Blumea 66(1): 82-92
https://doi.org/10.3767/blumea.2021.66.01.04
Boek: Book of Abstracts from Conference for the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC), International Partner – BHL (Biodiversity Heritage Library) and National Partner – NatSCA (Natural Sciences Collections Association) 2022
Pagina's: 4
Jaar van publicatie:2022
Toegankelijkheid:Open