J.R.I. Wood came to Bolivia in 1993 to work with Bolivian universities and school teachers in an education project funded by the British government's Department of International Development.
He lived in Sucre from 1993 to 2000. Since 2001 he has been based in Oxford University and has been involved in a series of biodiversity projects in Bolivia, funded principally by the Darwin Initiative. Some of these activities are report on the Conservation of the Cerrados of Eastern Bolivia website.
Throughout this period he has made collections of Bolivian plants which amount to around 20,000 in number, either alone or in collaboration with Bolivian and international colleagues.
The top set of his collection numbers 7585 - 23359 are deposited at the Bolivian National Herbarium (LPB), while the top set of numbers from 23360 onwards are at the Herbario del Oriente in Santa Cruz, Bolivia (USZ) at the Natural History museum Noel Kempff Mercado, although these are also mostly duplicated at LPB.
Additionally duplicates of all his collections are normally also held at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (K), with the exception of families subject to CITES restrictions (principally orchids and cacti) and bryophytes - these latter being very few in number. Duplicates of numbers 10,000 - 23359 are also quite frequently in two other Bolivian herbaria - BOLV in Cochabamba and HSB in Sucre. Duplicates of collections numbering between 23360 and 27104 are also mostly in the Universidade de Brasilia (UB). Duplicates of various collections can be found sporadically in other herbaria including MO and US.
The collections cover most families of flowering plants and pteridophytes but Cactaceae, Orchidaceae and Arecaceae are poorly represented. Most other families are well-represented but amongst those with especially good representation are Acanthaceae, Asclepiadaceae, Asteraceae, Commelinaceae, Convolvulaceae, Cyperaceae, Iridaceae, Leguminosae, Malvaceae., Myrtaceae, Poaceae and Polygalaceae.
There are collections from all Bolivian Departments except Pando but the Departments of Chuquisaca, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz are particularly well-represented. The collections are especially rich in plants from the cerrados, inter-Andean dry valleys and the Tucuman-Bolivian forest region, including the chaco fringes.
This website provides access to c. 17,000 botanical collections made in Bolivia by J.R.I. Wood. Last updated in August 2011. Plant images are soon to be added.
John Wood is the representative of the Department of Plant Sciences of Oxford University. Since 1993 he has worked extensively in Bolivia undertaking botanical research and biodiversity conservation.
Since 2001 he has worked at Oxford University where he continues his work on Bolivian plants but also has specialist interests in the families Acanthaceae, Convolvulaceae and Labiatae mostly in Asia and South America.
He has also studied and collected plants in various countries of America and Asia and has contributed to the floras of Bhutan, China, Sri Lanka and Yemen.
