Historical Plant Collection From Indonesia Discovered In Basel

(MENAFN- Swissinfo) Experts in Basel have found four plant collections belonging to the two naturalists Fritz and Paul Sarasin that were thought to be lost. Until now, scientists had assumed that these pocket herbaria were destroyed in Berlin during the Second World War. This content was published on May 28, 2025 - 08:02 2 minutes Keystone-SDA

• Deutsch de Zerstört geglaubte historische Pflanzensammlung in Basel gefunden Original Read more: Zerstört geglaubte historische Pflanzensammlung in Basel gefunde

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With the latest discovery in Basel, it is now clear that at least some of them have been preserved, as the Swiss Natural History Collections Network (Swisscollnet) announced on Tuesday. The pocket herbaria contain 28 dried reference plants, so-called type specimens, which were used by botanists to scientifically describe newly discovered species.

The two Basel-based naturalists Paul Sarasin (1856-1929) and Fritz Sarasin (1859-1942) brought back bulging pocket herbaria from their expedition to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. These included plant species that were still unknown at the time and found nowhere else. A bombing in 1943 sparked a fire that destroyed the Berlin herbarium. As a result, the preserved plants from Sulawesi appeared to be lost.

As part of a digitisation project by the University of Basel and Swisscollnet, experts came across Sarasin's pocket herbaria“in a dusty box” during an audit of the Basel collections, according to the press release.

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