The Blatter Herbarium (BLAT), in

St. Xavier's College, Mumbai St. Xavier's College is a private, Catholic Church, Catholic, institution of higher education run by the Bombay Province of the Society of Jesus in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. It was founded by the Jesuits on 2 January 1869. The college is ...

, is a major

Herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant biological specimen, specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sh ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. It is listed in the ''Index Herbariorum'', published by the

International Association for Plant Taxonomy The International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT) is an organization established to promote an understanding of plant biodiversity, facilitate international communication of research between botanists, and oversee matters of uniformity and ...

and

New York Botanical Garden The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, ...

. The

specializes in the vascular plants of western

; algae, mosses, and fungi of

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

; seed samples of medicinally and economically important plants of

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

, and wood samples of Maharashtra. The institute holds the largest botanical collection in western India.

History

The Herbarium was founded by the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

priest and taxonomist, Ethelbert Blatter, SJ. It was renamed in his honour in 1941 by his associate and director of the Herbarium, Father Henry Santapau, SJ. Father Santapau went on to direct the Botanical Survey of India, and was recognized by the Indian Government with a Padmashri in 1964 for his services to Indian botany. The two priests are regarded as pioneers in Indian plant taxonomy, and contributed over 500 scientific articles to various journals. They also wrote a number of books, like ''The Flora of Aden, Arabia''; ''Beautiful Flowers of Kashmir''; ''The Bombay Grasses''; ''Palms of Asia''; ''Orchids of Bombay''; ''Medicinal and Poisonous plants of India''; ''Flora of Khandala''; ''Acanthaceae of Bombay'', and ''Trees of Bombay''. The Herbarium is currently engaged in a variety of national projects, including surveys of medicinally and economically important plants of Western Maharashtra, the flora of

Ratnagiri Ratnagiri (IAST:Ratnāgirī ; �ət̪n̪aːɡiɾiː is a port city on the Arabian Sea coast in Ratnagiri District in southwestern Maharashtra, India. The district is part of Konkan division of Maharashtra. The city is known for the Hapus or ...

District,

ethnobiology ] Ethnobiology is the multidisciplinary field of study of relationships among peoples, biota, and environments integrating many perspectives, from the social, biological, and medical sciences; along with application to conservation and sustain ...

Goa Goa (; ; ) is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is bound by the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north, and Karnataka to the ...

Tribals, and the trees of Mumbai. Many scholars make use of the institute's facilities to conduct post-graduate and doctoral studies.

Collections

The Herbarium contains a flowering plants collection that dates back to 1816, with over 1,50,000 specimens from all over India. It maintains type materials for about 400 plants which have been identified as new species over a period of time. It holds large

alga Algae ( , ; : alga ) is an informal term for any organisms of a large and diverse group of photosynthetic organisms that are not plants, and includes species from multiple distinct clades. Such organisms range from unicellular microalgae, suc ...

fungus A fungus (: fungi , , , or ; or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as one ...

bryophyte Bryophytes () are a group of embryophyte, land plants (embryophytes), sometimes treated as a taxonomic Division (taxonomy), division referred to as Bryophyta ''Sensu#Common qualifiers, sensu lato'', that contains three groups of non-vascular pla ...

pteridophyte A pteridophyte is a vascular plant (with xylem and phloem) that reproduces by means of spores. Because pteridophytes produce neither flowers nor seeds, they are sometimes referred to as " cryptogams", meaning that their means of reproduction is ...

and

gymnosperm The gymnosperms ( ; ) are a group of woody, perennial Seed plant, seed-producing plants, typically lacking the protective outer covering which surrounds the seeds in flowering plants, that include Pinophyta, conifers, cycads, Ginkgo, and gnetoph ...

collections. It also has obtained specimens from regions like

Sindh Sindh ( ; ; , ; abbr. SD, historically romanized as Sind (caliphal province), Sind or Scinde) is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, southeastern region of the country, Sindh is t ...

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

. The institute's museum preserves wood, seed and fruit samples of plants with medicinal properties. Pickled specimens of algae, fungi and

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

are also stored in the museum. The attached library boasts of a copy of the first book printed in India - ''

Colóquios dos simples e drogas da India ''Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India'' () is a work published in Goa on 10 April 1563 by Garcia de Orta, a Portuguese Jewish physician and naturalist, a pioneer of tropical medicine. Outline of the ''Colóquios'' Garcia de Orta's wo ...

'' (1563) by

Garcia de Orta Garcia de Orta (or Garcia d'Orta; 1501–1568) was a Portuguese physician, herbalist, and naturalist, who worked primarily in Goa and Bombay in Portuguese India. A pioneer of tropical medicine, pharmacognosy, and ethnobotany, Garcia used an e ...

. Besides the '' Hortus Malabaricus'' (The Gardens of Malabar) by

Hendrik van Rheede Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Drakenstein (13 April 1636 – 15 December 1691) was a Dutch military man and colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company. Between 1669 and 1676 he served as a governor of Dutch Malabar at Kochi and em ...

from 1678, the library contains a compendium of botanical literature and Indian and international journals on botany.

References

External links

The St. Xavier's College section on the HerbariumThe Index Herbarium
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091228021749/http://sciweb.nybg.org/science2/IndexHerbariorum.asp , date=2009-12-28
Blatter Herbarium
Natural history of India Herbaria in Asia