The first international "Fascination of Plants Day" (May 18th 2012) will be launched under the umbrella of the European Plant Science Organisation. The goal of this activity is to get as many people as possible around the world fascinated by plants and enthused about the importance of plant science. vifabio is supporting this campaign by collecting the most important internet sources together for you.
You will find more biological web resources in our Internet Guide - a catalogue of annotated and evaluated internet sites.
"Flora brasiliensis" was published between 1840 and 1906 by the editors Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, August Wilhelm Eichler, and Ignatz Urban, with the participation of 65 specialists from various countries. It contains taxonomic treatments of 22.767 species, mostly Brazilian angiosperms, held in 15 volumes, divided in 40 parts, with a total of 10.367 pages. The projects' aim is to develop an on-line information system about Brazil's flora, using Martius' Flora brasiliensis with high resolution digitized images of the plates as a base. ... [Information of the supplier]
The aim of this checklist of the flora of Brazil is to provide a functional and comprehensive list of all known Brazilian plants. The checklist comprises a total of 40.982 species, with 3.608 fungi, 3.495 algae, 1.521 bryophytes, 1.176 pteridophytes, 26 gymnosperms, and 31.156 angiosperms. [Editorial staff vifabio]
Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794-1868) was one of the most famous naturalists of the nineteenth century. From 1817 to 1821 he explored Brazil, with the zoologist Spix. During that period he collected more than 10,000 herbarium specimens that are now housed in the Botanische Staatssammlung, Muenchen, Germany. Importantly, von Martius' trip was the first to inspire academic interest in Brazil's rich flora. Martius quickly became an expert on palms and published three volumes of the Historia Naturalis Palmarum between 1823 and 1850. Additionally, he co-founded, with Endlicher, the magnificent Flora Brasiliensis, a monographical flora series. During his life time 46 fascicles were published, the remaining were completed later by Eichler and Urban in 1906 making a total of 130 volumes. Von Martius' private botanical collection grew, by purchase and exchange, to become one of the most important private herbaria of the nineteenth century. When he died, it contained ca. 300,000 specimens representing 65,000 species from all over the world. Approximately half of them came from the Amazon Basin. The Herbarium Martii was acquired by the Belgian government in 1870 and formed the beginning of a world collection for the then newly established Jardin botanique de l'Etat. The entire archive, with detailed lists for many of von Martius' acquisitions, is now conserved in the National Botanic Garden of Belgium. In this age of advancing technology it is possible to make species information and herbarium material more available to the academic community by placing it on the Internet. The project 'Prototype Image Server to Integrate the Martius' Herbarium and the Digital Flora Brasiliensis' aims to do just this. It represents an inter-institutional feasibility study within Work Package 13 of the European Network for Biodiversity Information. Initially this project focuses on eight pilot groups. From these groups, all historical type specimens of Brazilian taxa have been imaged and databased along with the texts and plates of the Flora Brasiliensis. Specimens, images, plates and texts are cross-linked and currently accessible on the Internet. ... [Information of the supplier]
On behalf of the Local Organizing Committee, I would like to invite all vegetation scientists, new and old, to attend the 59th Annual Symposium of the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS) that is returning to Brazil after 14 years, but this time in a completely different community type – the savannas of central Brazil. The Cerrado, the name used for the savannas of central Brazil, is home to an extensive flora, with over 12000 species in its extension of over 2 million km2. The plant communities vary in physiognomy from extensive grassy fields through savanna to forests, both riverine and on uplands, and higher altitude rocky fields. Fire is an important factor in the molding of these communities. Although the plants may not be as well collected as in other parts of the world, the Herbarium of the University of Brasilia has an outstanding collection with emphasis on the flora of the Cerrado. For the first time in the history of the IAVS, the meeting in 2016 will be within the tropics, but that is not to say that we will be in a hot and humid climate. The Cerrado has a distinct wet season, during our summer, and dry season, during our winter. The meeting will be at the end of our fall season, remember that we will be in the southern hemisphere again, and this is the beginning of the dry season in the region, so we should have warm days and cooler evenings and nights. The local where the meeting will be held, Pirenópolis, is a small historical city in Brazil. Pirenópolis is located in central Brazil approximately 150 km west of Brasília, our capital, where most of you will arrive. Hopefully everyone will have some time to spend in Brasília also to see why it has been included in UNESCO´s World Heritage sites. The specific theme of IAVS will be “Conservation of Plant Communities: From Environmental Drivers to Ecosystem Services”, although talks on all aspects of research related to the study of vegetation science will be welcome. There will be specific sessions on Classification of plant communities, Conservação of plant communities, Fire and grazing in the management of non-forest vegetation and Restoration of plant communities, among other topics. We are confident that all participants in this meeting will be satisfied with the scientific program, field excursions and social events that are being planned. We also hope that all participants will return to their institutes or places of origin with new ideas and new contacts, both national and international. ... [Information of the supplier]
