South Cape Herbarium History & Objectives
History
The original Forestry and Saasveld Herbarium specimens were donated by the CSIR to the National Botanical Institute, Pretoria in 1992. Jan Vlok, Yvette van Wijk and Di Turner motivated for its return, and the PRE Herbarium agreed to send back some of the specimens.
After many meetings between interested parties such as Cape Nature Conservation, National Parks Board, Saasveld, Jan, Yvette, & Di, permission was granted by the director of Western Cape Museums, Brian Wilmot, and Museum Curator Linda Labuschagne, to locate the Herbarium in a storeroom and small annex in the George Museum.
The Southern Cape Herbarium was then started in order to house the specimens sent back to George in 1994, and to ensure that the broader community as well as the environment, would benefit from the presence of a Herbarium devoted to the flora of the Southern Cape.
Audrey Moriarty, author of "Outeniqua, Tsitsikamma and the Eastern Karoo" generously bought the large property adjacent to the Botanical Garden for the Herbarium. The house is ideal for our purposes, providing offices, lecture room and the Herbarium is housed in two large rooms. This property is now known as the "Moriarty Environmental Centre".
Objectives
- The Southern Cape Herbarium aims to curate and build up the herbarium collection, and establish facilities to be made available for research and education, to the broadest possible spectrum of the community.
- House and catalogue the Herbarium collections in accordance with the norms of Herbaria worldwide.
- By developing awareness of the flora of the region, and by identifying the importance of the flora in the context of community and environmental health, to enable communities to gain a better understanding of the value, to them, of the regional flora.
- Help to instil a better conservation ethic in the region to the benefit of the community and the environment as a whole.
- Generate funds and access donations and sponsorships, in order to cover running costs, build up a Botanical Library, and acquire other essential equipment.
