CIRAD
Located at the heart of the CIRAD research center, (Center for International Cooperation in Agronomic Research for Development), the ALF herbarium though relatively recent, is of particular interest. Indeed, it covers very specific botanical (Agrostology, Malherbology...) and geographical fields. It is still today an important resource for research, and is continuously enriched with new specimens being collected all across the world by scientists.
The Cirad Herbarium is registered under the name ALF in the Herbariorum Index. It encompasses various collections made by researchers at the IEMVT (Institute of Livestock and Veterinary Medicine of Tropical Countries), and subsequently by other CIRAD teams. It contains nearly 70,000 specimens, including 60 types, representing nearly 5,500 species.
Collects carried out in Africa in the 1950s by agropastoralists set up the original basis of the IEMVT Herbarium, then located at Maisons-Alfort. This general herbarium was relocated from the Paris region to Montpellier in 1995, where it is currently kept on the CIRAD site at Baillarguet (Montferrier).
The general herbarium comprises nearly 50,000 specimens. This collection is quite specific to the African dry tropical zone, spreading from Mauritania to the Red Sea. Although representing well the steppes and savannas of the Sudanian and Sahelian domains, this collection also includes herbaceous and woody plants from the Guinean domain. The collection was built up from various work and research carried out on the large breeding and transhumance areas of Africa by the agropastoralists of IEMVT, and then EMVT. This collection is completed with the Hubert Gillet's Herbarium, donated in 1989, and composed during his doctoral thesis in Chad between 1954 and 1964. Finally, Pierre Poilecot's Zimbabwe Herbarium has enriched the collection of specimens from southern Africa. Nearly 50 countries are thus represented in the collection, which was built up by the work of more than 300 collectors, from both the North and the South.
Since 1995, the ALF Herbarium has been home to the Amatrop collection of Malherbology, made by Thomas Le Bourgeois and Pascal Marnotte, who continue to enrich it through their research work. The CIRAD Amatrop herbarium is a collection specifically dedicated to weeds in tropical crops. This collection was initiated in the 1970s by the Research Institute for Cotton and Exotic Textiles (IRCT). This herbarium currently comprises nearly 7,000 parts, covering 2,650 species from various regions of the tropical world, mainly West and Central Africa, the Indian Ocean, Asia and the Caribbean. This collection also includes 25,000 photos, a seed bank of over 1,000 samples, and 212 drawn botanical plates.
The ALF herbarium is regularly enriched with new specimens. Samples, collected during recent missions, make it possible to extend the geographical regions covered by the herbarium, and to increase the number of species in the collection.
Contact
Samantha Bazan : samantha.bazan@cirad.fr
Place of Preservation of the ALF Herbarium ©CIRAD, Pierre Poilecot
Sample of Khaya nyasica Stapf ex Bak. F, ALF Herbarium ©CIRAD, Pierre Poilecot
Sample of Erythrophleum africanum (Benth.) Harms, ALF Herbarium ©CIRAD, Pierre Poilecot
Adansonia digitata, Baobab, collected in Sénégal in 1964
