The National Herbarium of Seychelles came into existence in the early 1960's. The first collection contained specimens from Mr Charles Jeffrey (1961), who initially was collecting for the KEW herbarium but graciously left duplicate specimens behind. In addition, precious specimens dating from as far back as1840 have been added to our collection thanks to the good collaborations with the "Museum d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris". In the 1980s, Dr Francis Friedmann and Dr Susan Anne Robertson supplemented this small debut collection by first identifying the main plant species of the Seychelles. Subsequently they respectively collected extensively across local plant families. A special mention is made to Dr Bruno Senterre, who from 2008 onwards, has done the bulk of additional collections and identification across other plant groups.
The National Herbarium is presently housed in the Natural History Museum, in Victoria, the capital city of Seychelles. It comprises a collection of around 5000 specimens of flowering plants (Dicots and Monocots) and ferns. There are 638 species of Dicots, out of a total of 973 species to be found in the Seychelles. Monocots are represented by 163 species out of a total of 366 and 100 species of ferns out of 127.Out of a total of 237 native Dicots, the herbarium collection is housing 196 species, 92 out of 132 native monocots and 90 out of 110 native fern species.
In 2012, In order to properly record information about all the plants present in Seychelles, a local civil society, the Plant Conservation Action group (PCA) joined forces with the Natural History Museum to work on a two-year programme, which became known as 'The Herbarium Project'.
The project had four main aims which included:
In conclusion, the Herbarium also houses a collection of Bryophytes, fungus and Marine algae, but these still need correctly identified, databased and properly classified within our main collection. We plan to hopefully achieve these goals within the next two years as there are plans to relocate the herbarium in more spacious accommodations in the next month or so.