The National Herbarium of Georgia

Brief overview

 

The National Herbarium of Georgia is a structural unit of Institute of Botany, Ilia State University; it is included in the international herbarium system (Index Herbariorum) and assigned abbreviation "TBI". Its significance as a national treasure is due to the following:

  • Collections of over 1,000,000 plant specimens (Cryptogams and Phanerogams)
  • Unique historical documentation on the Georgian plant resources
  • Unique source of information on Caucasian and in particular, Georgian biodiversity
  • Invaluable reference for all ongoing and future research on the Georgian and Caucasian plant life (including habitats and distribution) and utilization of plant resources by man
  • Extremely rich in historical collections (e.g. I. Medvedev, V. Lipsky, N. Albov, D. Sosnowskyi, I. Voronov, A. Grossheim, etc)
  • Unique assemblage of taxonomic types.

Over the recent years the personnel of National Herbarium of Georgia have undertaken intensive work to digitize herbarium holdings and make the collections available online in the form of virtual herbaria. 
This is an important achievement due to the following :

  • Easy access to the herbarium specimens and thus preservation of herbarium vouchers from overuse and physical disturbance
  • Analytical tool for geographical, ecological, altitudinal distribution of different plant groups within the Caucasus region (recognized internationally as one of the twenty-five biodiversity hotspots in the world)
  • Easily available, invaluable herbarium data for international scientific community including experts, monographers of different plant groups
  • Excellent basis for further development of the Georgian and Caucasian Red Lists and Red Data Books
  • Important source of information on the distributional patterns of invasive and exotic species; handy tool to select relevant plant communities to study ecological parameters of these plant groups
  • Primary source of information for governmental agencies, environmental NGOs, students and environmentalists in various organizations (reliable data source for decision-making during Environmental Impact Assessment of various-scale development projects)
  • Essential basis for preparation of keys and guides to different plant groups (substantial increase in toursim, especially ecotourism, is observed in the Caucasus region over the last decade; however, there is almost no scientifically sound and good quality bilingual data sources on the unique flora of the Caucasus)
  • Being a collection of historical data, it will offer a tool to analyze tendencies in distribution and abundance of plants including those of high economic value

At present, approximately 32,000 herbarium specimens are incorporated  into a database. The used database is BRAHMS software (an acronym for Botanical Research And Herbarium Management System), which is a widely used software to database extensive botanical collections.