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OBJECTIVES:
Aims
Principle aims of the Department of Botany
are: collection, identification and preservation of the flora and
mycobiota of Iran with focus on plant
protection aspects of Iranian flora and mycobiota.
Task
The department is in charge of
preparation and execution of research projects and programs on
collection and identification of the flora of Iran in addition to
preservation of identified specimens and using the material for
research and education purposes in relation to agricultural issues.
Execution of research projects on special botanical aspects and
collaboration with other departments of the institute and plant
protection departments of crop-specialized institutes and
dry-farming agriculture in relation to the identification of
vegetation as collaborative research projects. Cooperation with
other research institutions and organizations and universities to
prepare and execute joint projects is another area of activity of
the department. The Department of Botany also collaborates with the
unit of public affairs of the institute in order to establish
permanent and temporary botanical exhibitions. And finally the
department is open to answer scientific and technical questions
raised by researchers and national and international institutions in
relation to the identification of plants and fungi and it has
permanent contact and exchange of information and specimens with
similar national and international institutions.
LABORATORIES
HERBARIA AND COLLECTIONS OF
THE MINISTRY OF JIHAD-E AGRICULTURE (IRAN)
The herbaria and collections
that are maintained by the Department of Botany are one of the
richest collections of Iran located on the third floor of the Museum
building in the Iranian Research Institute of Plant Protection.
Formal name of the herbaria and collections is Herbarium Ministerii
Iranici Agriculturae and its acronym is "IRAN". With respect to its
richness and diversity, researchers and students from Iran and
abroad frequently use the herbaria by working on-site or receiving
specimens on-loan. The herbaria and collections are comprised of the
following six sections: herbarium of flowering plants, fungal
reference collection, weeds herbarium, non-flowering plants
herbarium, poisonous (medicinal and pesticide) plants, and fungal
culture collection.
FLOWERING PLANTS HERBARIUM
This herbarium is placed in a
hall named after Dr. Esfandiar Esfandiari, Iranian botanist and
mycologist who was the founder of this herbarium. This section
constitutes the largest part of the herbarium and contains more than
200000 specimens from Iran and other countries, among which are
about 300 nomenclatural types. In this section plants are sorted
alphabetically according to their family names. The activity of this
herbarium was started in 1948 when Dr Esfandiar Esfandiari
accompanied with Prof. Karl Heinz Rechinger (Austrian botanist) and
Dr. Paul Aellen (Swiss botanist) collected several plant specimens
from different parts of Iran. There are also a few specimens
collected before 1948 from which Nepeta bornmuelleri is the
oldest one collected by Joseph Bornmuelller (German botanist) from
Kuh-e-Hezar in Kerman province.
FUNGAL REFERENCE COLLECTION
The fungal reference
collection of the Ministry of Jihad-e Agriculture, is located in a
hall named after Dr. Ghavameddin Scharif. This section founded in
1945, is a museum collection of dried, labeled fungi. This
collection houses ca. 15000 dried specimens of fungi including 257
types and is the largest fungus collection in Iran. The specimens in
this section that are mostly collected after 1945 are listed
alphabetically according to the fungal genus name. There are also a
few specimens that were collected before 1945 from which the oldest
is Puccinia hordei on Bromus madritensis and collected
from Kazeroon (Gardane-e-Pirzan) on 08/04/1896 by Austrian botanist,
Erwin Gaoba. The oldest foreign specimen is Selenophoma
straussiana on Dianthus orientalis that was collected
from Asia Minor in July 1853 by Th. Kotchy.
The specimens of the collection are of two kinds viz. Iranian and
foreign specimens, which mainly belong to plant-associated fungi
i.e. rusts, smuts, powdery mildew, downy mildew and ectomycchorizal
fungi. Seventy-five percent of these specimens are from Iran and
thus represent a large body of information about the fungi in this
country. The specimens have been arranged alphabetically by genera
and species which make finding a species easy. System of filing in
this collection is “specimens in packets attached to herbarium
sheets”. In this method all identified specimens are placed in
different size of packets (depends on amount and dimension of the
specimen). These packets are pasted on standard cardboard sheets.
These sheets which bearing one or more packets are put into folders
of heavy manila paper and laid flat, one on another, in the metal
herbarium cabinets. As usual a separate folder is used for each
genus.
Fungus collection database
A computerized database was
created at the Department of Botany using Microsoft Access. It
currently contains more than 14000 records of the specimens in the
collection, with collection date ranging from the 1853 to the
present. The records include such information as scientific name,
collector and collection date, name of host (scientific name of host
in case of plant associated fungi) and locality.
NON-FLOWERING PLANTS
COLLECTION
Activity of this collection
started in the year 1991. Since then the number of non-flowering
plants specially, algae and mosses has been growing noticeably.
Presently more than 1000 moss specimens are preserved out of which
about 400 specimens are identified. All these specimens are arranged
alphabetically according to their generic names.
MEDICINAL AND PESTICIDE PLANTS
(POISONOUS PLNTS) HERBARIUM
This collection is comprised
of two sections: medicinal plant section (with particular emphasis
on therapeutic plant parts) is active since 1971 and pesticide plant
section started recently in 1999.
FUNGAL CULTURE COLLECTION
This collection was
established to maintain those fungi that can not be preserved in
dried form. This section was active since 1968. These fungi are
preserved under controlled conditions and are sub-cultured every 1-2
years. Based on the requirements of the fungus, they are preserved
as lyophilized, under mineral oil, in soil or in water and on agar
slant. At present, the collection contains over 1000 strains of
fungi. Most fungi of this collection are agriculturally important
strains.
WEED HERBARIUM
This collection is placed in a
hall named after Einollah Behboudi, the founder of weed research in
Iran. The aim of having this herbarium was to build up a collection
to help weed researchers and scientists to identify weeds of various
crops, therefore, specimens in this section are sorted according to
the crops. This section was founded in 1968 and is continuously
added to its richness. Presently this collection contains more than
6000 weed specimens belong to 447 genera.
LIVING PLANT COLLECTION
This collection was
established in 2004 within the framework of a taxonomic project on
the genus Allium in Iran. At present this collection contains
270 living accession of several Allium species collected from
the whole country.
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