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What are specimens?
Animals and plants are diverse into a great number of "species." For example, Ginkgo biloba, Cycas revoluta and Camellia sasanqua are each plant species. Some trees of Camellia sasanqua have white flowers while others red flowers. Individual variations are found in the Camellia species as human beings.
To understand the characters and the variations of each "species" we need to collect many individuals belonging to a single species as many as possible to reflect the whole rage of variations through the entire distribution range, and to be able to make a comparison among them. To collect many individuals through its distribution range has essential meanings in the science of species and natural history to lead the accurate knowledge, becoming a material base for the science including taxonomy.
The collected individuals are deposited as museum (research) specimens after some scientific treatments. There are various kind of specimens, such as bottled, dried and etc. In botany dried pressed specimens are most popular and generally called herbarium specimens (Fig.1). It is known from the 16 century in Europe but it made in Japan late of the 19 century (Ohba, 1996).
Herbarium specimens in the Department of Botany, the University of Tokyo Museum
A house or room which preserves botanical specimens and other materials related to botanical researches and education are called "herbarium." More than 6,000,000 specimens which were collected throughout the world are deposited in Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (U.K.); the Herbarium, Museum Nationale de Histoire Naturelle, Paris; the V.L.Komarov Botanical Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, Republic of Russia, St.Petersburg; and others. They are regarded as the world centres of botanical sciences. In Japan there is no such enormous herbarium but the Herbarium, Department of Botany of our Museum, which deposits about 1,700,000 specimens, is the largest herbarium. About one third of the specimens are now deposited in the Botanical Gardens, Koishikawa, the Gradual School of Science, because of the shortage of the space of our Museum.
Why does take the herbarium of our Department the important role in the world? First, the herbarium contains many type specimens of east Asian and Himalayan plants. Type specimens are the specimens on which new species of plants are typically represented (Fig.1,2). When new species are described, the type specimens were designated according to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. The type specimen will be examined when some problems concerned the new species occur. Internationally it is strongly recommended that the type specimens are deposited in a public herbarium and scrupulously conserved.
Secondly, many of the specimens of the Herbarium are authentic which have been used in the previous academic researches. Especially in taxonomy the academic researches can be evaluated by the specimens used. New academic researches will be based on the specimens which were used in previous researches in addition to new materials which will be collected by the researchers or their groups. Actually the specimens have been examined repeatedly. Originally the specimens of the Department of Botany were collected for the botanical researches done in the University of Tokyo, and many of them are of voucher specimens for the researches.
Third, our herbarium consists of internationally valuable collections of Japanese, Taiwanese, Korea, and Himalayan flora. Forth, our herbarium contains almost all the species of Japanese flora and also historical collections since the 1860s.
Indeed, the Herbarium of the University of Tokyo Museum deposits almost all the types described by the successive Professors of plant taxonomy, Ryokichi Yatabe, Jinzo Matsumura, Bunzo Hayata, Takenoshin Nakai, Masaji Honda, Hiroshi Hara, and also numerous botanists related to the University as Samuro Okubo, Tomitaro Makino, Manabu Miyoshi, Yoshisada Yabe, Shunzo Komatsu, Gen'ichi Koidzumi, Yoshisuke Satake, and Genkei Masamune. These are the reason why foreign botanists visit the herbarium and many specimens are sent on loan for various scientific studies in the world (Fig.3).
Database of plant specimens
As it is already mentioned, the type specimens are strongly recommended to preserve safely in a public herbarium and open to all the examiners. But this contains a contrary matter. If it gives the priority for scrupulous conservation, it is desirable to conserve strictly. In about the half of the cases of the research uses of the type specimens, the examination has been done only on the external appearance of the plants more or less magnifying with hand lens and about the data on the labels on the specimens.
For convenience of generous examinations of the type specimens, microfiches and photo catalogue of the type specimens have been published in the European and North American herbaria. Our Department of Botany has been also published the type catalogues with photocopies (Fig.4).
Recently numerous new methods appear in researches of specimens. One of them is the digital imaged database! Using the internet it is possible to be distributed the image of type specimens to user very quickly. Two database projects for the plant specimens deposited in the herbarium of Department of Botany are progressing. One of these is the database of the images of the type specimens; the other is the specimen database of the Himalayan plants. A part of these database is already opened to public.
The database of the images of the type specimens
This database contains the high quality images of the type specimens deposited in our Department of Botany. The contents are the scientific name, the kind of the types, the locality of the specimen, the collecting date, and the collectors.
Until now the photo images and essential data of about 2,000 type specimens classified to such as Saxifragaceae, Crassulaceae, Rosaceae, Aquifoliaceae, Celastraceae, and Caprifoliaceae, which have published as "Catalogue of the Type Specimen Preserved in the Herbarium, Department of Botany, the University Museum, the University of Tokyo" in the Material Reports of our Museum (Fig.4), in series, were already input. This project will be progressed and all the type specimens deposited in the Herbarium will become available for internet users.
Flora of Nepal Database
The Himalaya has been a centre of attraction for botanists due to its rich species. Its amazing floristic diversity was explored and documented as early as 1802 by Hamilton. The Himalaya is situated the western limit of Sino-Japanese floristic region and this is one of the reasons why Japanese botanists have been intending to the area. The botanical research teams have been exploring this area since 1960 and a great number of specimens are accumulated in the herbarium of our Department of Botany.
Now an international project, Flora of Nepal Project, is progressing. Our Department of Botany takes a role to make the world wide database of the specimens collected in Nepal.
This database also contains the Scientific Name Dictionary and the Locality Dictionary. The scientific names of Nepalese plants are all registered in the Scientific Name Dictionary with literature and synonyms. The researched area by University of Tokyo since 1960 are registered in the Locality Dictionary including district level information, locality information, latitude, longitude, elevation, and date.
Based on this database the distribution map of each species is available. And the information of the research intensity is also available.
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