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Documentation Centre in Plant Biodiversity Enlarges Collection with Gift of Joan Teixidor’s Herbarium

By 28 de January de 2008November 18th, 2020No Comments
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 28.01.2008

Documentation Centre in Plant Biodiversity Enlarges Collection with Gift of Joan Teixidor’s Herbarium

On Thursday, 31 January, at 6.30 pm, the official presentation of Joan Teixidor's herbarium will take place in the Antoni Caparrós Auditorium at the Barcelona Science Park. The herbarium, a collection of over 25,000 plants gathered from throughout the Iberian Peninsula, has recently been donated by Manresa City Hall to the Documentation Centre in Plant Biodiversity at the University of Barcelona (). Thursday afternoon's event, presided over by UB Rector Màrius Rubiralta, is also to be attended by Professor Joan Vallès, who will talk on the collection's scientific and historical importance.


Joan Teixidor i Cos (1836-1885) was a professor in the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Barcelona and at other Spanish universities. He gave his collection to the chemist Francesc PuigPiqué, who in turn donated it to Manresa City Hall, where it has remained until now. Giving the collection to the UB will enable greater study access by the scientific community. It will also significantly enlarge the CeDocBiV holdings, which currently number roughly 300,000 specimens. Adding to the donation’s value, is also includes a number of nomenclatural type specimens, which are plants on which descriptions of new species have been based.

As with all historical herbaria, the collection will permit scientific research to be done from widely varying perspectives: systematic comparative studies using DNA extraction, ecological studies (based on chemical analysis of leaf composites), ethnobotanical studies (based on vernacular plant names and popular uses), studies in the field of history of science, and so forth.

CeDocBiV is located at the Barcelona Science Park. A service of the University of Barcelona, it brings together the various documentary sources (herbarium, databases, bibliography etc) that are both used and created by the research groups working within the Botanical Units in the Faculties of Biology and Pharmacy. In addition to giving support to the efforts of UB researchers, CeDocBiV provides information on plant biodiversity to public institutions, businesses and private citizens. The herbarium is the third largest on the Iberian Peninsula and one of the most diverse, drawing by virtue of its location on significant examples from all major plant groups: algae, bryophytes, cormophytes, fungi and lichens.

Getting these collections online is one of CeDocBiV’s current priorities. The dabatases can already be consulted through the CeDocBiV web page and from other international networks such as and . Digitalising the samples has also begun recently, including type specimens, historical collections and seed samples for species from protected natural areas. The resulting collection of images, constituting a virtual herbarium, can be consulted online.