Manual on National Herbarium of Cultivated Plants Division of Plant Exploration and Germplasm Collection ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi-110 012 Disclaimer: This document has been prepared primarily based on work done in the NHCP for past three decades with experience by the herbarium staff. No part of this of this document may be used without permission from the Director. Citation: Pandey Anjula, K Pradheep and Rita Gupta (2015) Manual on National Herbarium of Cultivated Plants, National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi, India, 50p. © National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi- 110 012, India About the Manual on Herbarium of Cultivated Plants The manual on ‘National Herbarium of Cultivated Plants’ contains information on National Herbarium of Cultivated Plants (NHCP) along with detailed guidelines on ‘How to use the NHCP’. Some practical experiences gathered while working in this facility are also included in the relevant context. Significant output from this facility in relevance of Plant genetic resource is enlisted. Knowledge on various aspects of the herbarium, need based demonstrations and user guidelines were disseminated in various training programmes conducted by ICAR-NBPGR to address various issues. To bring out this manual in present form is an attempt keeping in view various indentors approaching this facility from time to time to satisfied their quarries pertaining to consultation and use. Because of dependency of many users from various inter- disciplinary science especially from agriculture and pharmaceutical sciences, need was felt to develop this manual on NHCP. While developing this efforts have been made to include all the information in simple and user friendly way for benefit of users. Feedback from all users is highly appreciated. NHCP Contents S.No. Title Page no. 1. Introduction 1 2. National Herbarium of Cultivated Plants 1 3. How to use the NHCP 11 4. Some significant outpu 11 5. Acknowledgments 14 6. References/Selected Readings 14 Annexures (1-10) 7. List of families represented in NHCP (Annexure 1) 17 8. Different coloured folders used for arranging herbarium specimens 20 (Annexure 2) 9. Wild relatives of crop plants represented in NHCP (Annexure 3) 21 10. Herbarium Record (during field collection) and Index Card, NHCP, 34 NBPGR, New Delhi (Annexure 4) 11. Guidelines for consulting the NHCP (Annexure 5) 35 12. Guidelines for identification/ authentication/ issue of authentication 36 certificate (Annexure 6) 13. Guidelines for deposition of herbarium samples at NHCP (Annexure 37 7a, b) 14. Guidelines for visit to NHCP (Annexure 8) 40 15. Guidelines for participation in training/technical knowhow on 41 herbarium (Annexure 9) 16. Proforma to be filled for taking photographs of herbarium specimens 42 for study (Annexure 10) Appendix (1-2) 17. Additional links, source of information and literature for 43 identification and use of herbarium resources 18. List of Important Museum/ Herbaria, Code, Specialty and Date of 47 foundation 19. Illustration 49 1.Introduction Global herbarium resources consists of approximately 4,000 recognized herbaria collectively holding over 35,00,00,000 herbarium specimens. India represents over 3.5 million herbarium specimens including over 23,000 type specimens (source: http://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/IndexHerbariorum.asp). The herbarium of cultivated plants at ICAR-National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi, also known as National Herbarium of Cultivated Plants (code ‘NHCP’) occupies a place among 25 major Indian herbaria. It holds collections mainly of cultivated taxa and wild/ weedy relatives of crop taxa of both native and exotic origin; besides, seed and carpological samples of plant genetic resources (PGR) as complementary collections. NHCP is intended to serve as a reference collection for identification, and taxonomic study of taxa of PGR relevance. It differs in its mandate from the general herbaria across the country in representing wide range of variability in crop plants depicted as cultivars, primitive landraces, wild forms and their wild relatives from different agro-ecological regions of India collected under various PGR programmes. In addition local flora of Delhi, weed flora, species of medicinal and potential value are richly represented here as vouchers. Build-up of material is through specimens/ seeds collected during explorations in different agro-ecological zones of India, material introduced from abroad under various research/ breeding/selection programmes and also vouchers of the systematic studies of crop groups. Herbarium specimens representing all essential parts and information on locality, habitat and salient characters of collected material are available in the NHCP for teaching, research and referral use. Information on plant species about area of availability, variability pattern, flowering/fruiting time, status on rare/endangered/endemism, economic uses, etc. gathered from herbarium data may help the users in carrying out studies in various fields. An ideally dried herbarium with character representation (vegetative characters: roots, tubers, bulbs and rhizome, leaf, stipule, spine, spathe, bark, etc. and floral characters: inflorescence, flower- scape, stamen, petal; and fruit characters: pericarp, placentation, seed) are good resources for taxonomic studies (Davis and Heywood, 1963). The ‘Manual on Herbarium of Cultivated Plants’ has been prepared to serve as baseline information that provides brief introduction about the NHCP, components of the herbarium, procedures followed besides providing guidelines for using the herbarium. 2. National Herbarium of Cultivated Plants 2.1 History of NHCP Taxonomy of cultivated plant groups has been largely a neglected field. Moreover, little or no herbarium records are available of materials of primitive forms, landraces, as also obsolete cultivars in traditional herbaria. Keeping this in view the Herbarium of Plant Introduction Division of Indian Agricultural Research Institute was reportedly set up in 1948; during 1948- 1974 nearly 5,000 specimens were added through collections made under various genetic resource programmes such as evaluation, breeding, and plant introduction. The herbarium was rechristened in 1985 as National Herbarium of Cultivated Plants with its location at the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources, New Delhi. To lay thrust on this activity, work was taken up in project mode in 1985 under institutional project on “Establishment, build-up and maintenance of herbarium and seed museum of cultivated plants”. Since 1985, the holdings have raised to four folds with tremendous increase during implementation of National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP 1999-2005), under which exploration activity was a major thrust. 1 NHCP is listed in the Index Herbariorum which is a global directory of public herbaria in different regions (http://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/IndexHerbariorum.asp). The first curator Dr. E Roshini Nayar, with her painstaking effort in building up of infrastructure facilities, a separate wing (in Old Campus, now) was created during 1988. Box: Some Dos’ and Don’ts’ for visitors at NHCP Dos’ Use only the visitors’ area designated for study in NHCP; observe silence while working Do enter your name and address in visitors’ book before starting the work Handle the specimen with utmost care as they are the most precious vouchers for genetic resource study Immediately inform the curator on finding any discrepancy/ damage or misplacement of a specimen Handle the specimens after wearing mask and gloves especially while working with treated material; wash hands carefully after use Do put the ‘determinavet slip’, if sure of the wrong identity of herbarium specimen, if any Close the storage chambers/ compactors immediately after use Ensure to have emergency numbers/ contact numbers while working inside the herbarium (or) contact herbarium staff during emergency Keep your valuables in safe custody while working Don’ts’ Do not bring any raw material/wet material/ live plants/ other sources into the herbarium Do not bring any eatables/ food material inside the herbarium Do not bring any fire/ hazardous material inside the herbarium Do not removed any part of the specimen during study; if broken keep it in pouch and inform curator Do not stack herbarium folders one on the other or upside down Do not take photographs without the permission from the authorities Do not put back the specimens in wrong place without consultation with herbarium staff Specialized training attained by the scientific staff of the herbarium at various national and international herbaria such as the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and in the USA facilitated in 2 modernization and upgrading of its infrastructure. The insect- pest- and dust-free storage cabinets gradually replaced the traditional pigeon hole cabinets. With addition of three new- space saver compactors during 2004-2008, the capacity of herbarium has increased to up to 40,000 specimens. The work done in project mode on ‘Genetic Resources Study of Economically Important Plant Families- Cucurbitaceae, Malvaceae, Rosaceae and Poaceae’ during 1984-1995 served as base line for many systematic works undertaken in NHCP. 2.2 Brief about the NHCP The NHCP has representation of cultivated taxa (and variability within them) of crop/economic species (reported in The Wealth of India, CSIR, New Delhi), wild relatives of major crop taxa (Arora and Nayar, 1984) including the rare,