South Central China and Tibet: Hotspot of Diversity
Participating Institutions
Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University
Founded in 1872 to increase our knowledge of woody plants through research and
education, the Arboretum carries out that mission within its Olmsted-designed
landscape by developing, curating, and maintaining a collection of living
woody plants from around the world that are hardy in the Boston area.
The Arboretum’s herbarium of over 1.3 million wild-collected specimens,
the majority from Asia, is maintained with other collections in the Harvard
University Herbaria.
Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Major areas of research at the Institute include the restoration of degraded
ecological systems and the biological resources of the upper reaches of
the Yangtze River and eastern Tibet. The Institute also conducts research
in systematics and phylogeny, as well as in conservation biology, with
studies focused on the relationships between biodiversity and environmental
conditions and on the reproductive behavior of protected species.
Farlow Reference Library and Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany
The Farlow Herbarium, administered as part of the Harvard University Herbaria,
houses over a million specimens of lichenized and non-lichenized fungi,
bryophytes, and algae. The collections are worldwide in scope, with particular
strengths in the bryophytes and fungi of Asia.
Harvard University Herbaria
The combined collections of the Harvard University Herbaria date to 1954,
when the collections of the Arnold Arboretum, founded in 1872, and the
Gray Herbarium, founded in 1864, were joined to form one of the world’s
largest collections of botanical specimens and literature. Since then
the Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium (1899), the Economic Botany Herbarium
(1858), and the Herbarium of the New England Botanical Club (1896) have
been added. The resources of the Harvard Herbaria and Botanical Libraries
are among the world’s best for studying the plants of Asia.
Harvard University Library, Library Digital Initiative
Harvard University launched the Library Digital Initiative (LDI) in July 1998
to develop the University’s capacity to manage digital information and
to provide expertise and technical assistance to libraries, archives,
museums, and research projects involved in collecting or creating digital
resources throughout the University. In October of 1999, the Arnold Arboretum
Horticultural Library was awarded a challenge grant from LDI to digitize
historic and contemporary material from Harvard’s natural history and
ethnographic collections that related to China and Tibet.
Harvard-Yenching Library
The Harvard-Yenching Library is Harvard University’s primary resource for research materials on traditional and modern East Asia and is the largest university library for East Asian research in the Western world. Founded in 1928 with a collection of several thousand Chinese and Japanese books that had been acquired since 1879, today the library’s collections stand at more than 980,000 volumes, of which 560,000 are in Chinese, 260,000 in Japanese, 100,000 in Korean, 45,000 in Western languages, and 12,000 in Vietnamese, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Manchu.
Institute of Botany, Beijing, Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Institute’s herbarium, located within its botanical garden in Xiangshan,
on the outskirts of Beijing, is now a national center for Chinese plant
collections. It is one of the oldest herbaria in China and the largest
in Asia, with more than two million specimens. The herbarium houses about
10,000 type specimens and plays a key role in the publication of Flora
Reipublicae Popularis Sinicae and Flora of China.
Institute of Botany in Kunming, Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Institute’s herbarium includes more than 1.2 million specimens collected
since its foundation in 1930. It is particularly rich in collections from
the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau area and from other parts of Yunnan, Xizang,
Sichuan, Guizhou, Qinghai, and Xinjiang provinces. The Institute is currently
producing the Chinese language Flora Yunnanica and Flora Xizangica,
which together will include more than a third of the 30,000 plant species
in China..
Laboratory of Systematic Mycology and Lichenology, Beijing, Chinese
Academy of Sciences
Established in 1985, the Laboratory has the largest mycological herbarium in Asia.
It is an academic research institution focused on the study of the evolution
of fungi, species diversity, and natural systems.
Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
The Museum was founded in 1859 as a center for research and education through
the efforts of the Swiss zoologist Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), who served
as its director until his death in 1873. Its twelve departments-biology,
oceanography, entomology, herpetology, invertebrate paleontology, invertebrate
zoology, mammalogy, marine biology, mollusks, ornithology, population
genetics, and vertebrate paleontology-carry on Agassiz’ vision and are
leaders in modern zoological research.