Herbarium

KFRI herbarium was started in early 1980s with regular field collections of specimens. Now it holds over 11,074 specimens and recognized internationally by the acronym ‘KFRI’ by the International Association of Plant Taxonomists (IAPT). Apart from general collections, KFRI-herbarium has a complete collection of medicinal plants in South India and a pan Indian collection of palms and bamboos of India including Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The species in the herbaria are indexed in alphabetical order with collection numbers under respective plant families. The families are arranged according to the system of classification of flowering plants by Benthem and Hooker with delimitation to certain families in accordance with their current concepts. The 11,074 specimens representing more than 2,200 species form 159 families. The lone Gymnosperm in the herbarium is from Gnetaceae. The predominant plant families in the collection are Graminae (203 spp.), Orchidaceae (184 spp.), Arecaceae (118 spp.), Fabaceae (115 spp.), Fabaceae (111 spp.), Euphorbiaceae (107 spp.), Rubiaceae (80 spp.) and Compositae (52 spp.). The herbarium also represented with 90 species of pteridophytes.

The herbarium attracts researchers from all over the state and elsewhere. The digitized version of the Herbarium available on-line at http://www.kfriherbarium.in/

KFRI Herbarium is providing the specimens as loans for research purposes and the details such as the loan request form, instructions, etc., can be downloaded from here (Zip format)

Contact: Dr. VB Sreekumar
Forest Botany Department
Kerala Forest Research Institute
Peechi P.O, Thrissur District, Kerala - 680653, India.
Tel: +91-487-2690382
e-mail: herbarium@kfri.res.in