Johannes Lundberg and Arne A. Anderberg. African type specimens in the Swedish Museum of Natural History (S) and its role in the API project. Poster presented at the 18th AETFAT Congress, February 26 - March 2, 2007, Yaoundé, Cameroon. [PDF]
The Herbarium (Phanerogamic botany, S) at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm, Sweden, joined the African Plants Initiative in late 2005. Scanning was initiated in April 2006, using one Herbscan, and since then about 1500 specimens have been scanned. In 2005 the estimated total number of African type specimens was close to 5000, but today more than 6000 African type specimens have been identified, and new types are still discovered in the main collection. From January 2007, two persons will work in the project, using two Herbscans, and we are confident that we will have all 6000+ types scanned by the end of the year.
Among the collections in S especially noteworthy are those of C.F. Ecklon & C.L.P. Zeyher and the J.F. Drège collections from South Africa, and the R.W. Schimper collections from Ethiopia. We also have many other collections, old and modern, from South Africa (in total about 4000 type specimens), but also Kenya (180 specimens, e.g., R.E. Fries & T.C.E. Fries) and Cameroon (240 specmiens, e.g., G. Zenker) are fairly well represented. Other historically important collections includes several of the Linnaean disciples (C.P. Thunberg, P. Forsskål, A. Sparrman, A. Afzelius).