Type Collections

[Steve Boyd]

Dr. Rob Huxley wrote:
>
>>Here at  the Natural History Museum, London (BM)  we do not in
>>general separate any  types from the main herbaria. ....
>>
>>I would be interested in the views of others on this.
>
>Of herbaria I know:
>
>US, MICH, and NY all keep types in a separate area.

 Nancy Henshold replied:

>MO puts types in protective folders and files them in the general collection
>[As I remember, they file them under the 'annotated' name. I think some
>attempt was made to keep a file going on what name types could be found
>filed under, but this seems nightmarish to me].
>
>At F, we keep ours at the end of the family, so not inconvenient to
>herbarium-crawlers. We also photograph them, and file the photographs in the
>general collection, usually under the original name, regardless of
>annotation. (Altho for photos made recently, we don't always make prints -
>saving money I guess.) I use and crawl the herbarium a lot, and like this
>system fine.

Here at RSA-POM the type specimens are segregated from the main collection,
but are readily accessible within one of the herbarium ranges.  At the time
the specimens were segregated, the decision was made (not by me, but by
committee) to segregate all kinds of types, except for topotypes.  We also
included photographs of types initially, then decided not to, and at
present that issue is still in flux.  I tend to agree with folks like Curt
Clark that separation of the paratypes is an unnecessary activity and that
eliminating this category of types from segregated type collections would
obviate most problems arising from all specimens cited in the protolog
other than they holotype and isotypes being considered paratypes.

On the other hand, there is no big rush here at RSA-POM to pull any
paratypes currently in the segregated type collection.  Frankly there are
too many other things we need to do in this herbarium which have higher
priority.

Cheers,

Steve

****************************************************************************
STEVE BOYD
Administrative Curator, RSA-POM
boyds at cgs.edu
1500 North College Avenue
Claremont, CA 91711
(909) 625-8767 ext. 248