UK’s Royal Botanic Garden and Natural History Museum: and India

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Preservation of extinct plants from India

Jhimli Mukherjeepandey, Centuries-old species of extinct plants from India being well-preserved in UK, March 25, 2018: The Times of India

Roxburgh, some achievements
From: Jhimli Mukherjeepandey, Centuries-old species of extinct plants from India being well-preserved in UK, March 25, 2018: The Times of India

Hundreds of species of plants that used to exist in India 200 years ago and are now believed to have gone extinct are not only alive, but well preserved in the UK. A team of senior botanists from Kolkata, who returned last Friday after a four-month tour of the UK, has found that these plants, samples of which had been carefully collected by the British and kept at the Royal Botanic Garden and the Natural History Museum, are well preserved to this day.

The team has also made a revelation related to climate change: a large number of plants currently in the two herbaria used to naturally grow at lower altitudes 200 years ago, when they had been collected. For example, plants that used to grow in Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar have now gone up the slopes to Darjeeling and Sikkim, a change that the scientists ascribe to global warming.

The discovery to retrace the journey of these plants was undertaken by the botanists from the Indian Botanic Garden, Shibpur. The scientists were allowed access to all the 8,00,000 specimens of Indian plants that had been transported out of the country from the time of William Roxburgh, the first superintendent of the Shibpur garden (1794-1812). His successor Nathiel Wallich continued the tradition and the lion’s share of the specimens was sent out till 1899.

Roxburgh had tried to set up a herbarium inside the garden in Shibpur, but the weather was such that the plants could not be preserved. So, he started sending them out to the Kew Garden (the Royal Botanic Garden) and British Museum (out of which the Natural History Museum was born in 1881). Roxburgh and his successorsgot artists to draw the likenesses of each species before sending them out, and these have been preserved at the Shibpur garden to this day.

The research team has also digitised the details of 25,000 specimens and brought those back with them, because rules say that no specimen can be taken out of its country of residence. Sothese species cannot physically travel back to India.