2004 internship:

The main objective of this project is to systematically study the botanical collections of Brazilian Lauraceae species housed at the National Botanic Garden of Belgium (Meise, Herbarium BR). Herbarium BR is of great importance to the taxonomy of Brazilian Lauraceae because it keeps historical and type specimens from important collectors of the 19th century (mainly in “Herbarium Martii”), which are essential for the precise identification and classification of taxa. These collections have no duplicates in any Brazilian herbaria. Additionally, according to its curator, no more historical BR material can be loaned, since BR has lost several important historical specimens sent on loan in the past years.

Study of extant Lauraceae collections in BR would complement a data base that has been built for Brazilian species through the annotation and digitized images of all exsiccatae. Additionally, Herbarium BR most probably possess many other specimens that have no duplicates in Brazil, which are also important to be registered.

2011 internship:

The collections of Brazilian plants kept in “Herbarium Martii” at BR will again be accessed. The objective is the completion of a Catalogue of the Brazilian plants collected by Prince Maximilian of Wied in 1815-17, which Mr. Rodrigues de Moraes started compiling in 2008, when visiting several European herbaria, including BR. The main set of plants collected by Wied in Brazil is housed at BR. High-resolution digital photographs and/or scans of the species/specimens analyzed for the Catalogue will be printed and deposited at Herbarium Rio Clarense (HRCB), to serve as a physical register of the material collected in Brazil, which has no duplicates kept in Brazilian institutions.