Beautifully presented, and warm and welcoming, the Herbarium of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has a good collection of Israeli Papyrus and is the most important Herbarium in Israel. Collections previously held in Tel Aviv were transferred here. I was interested to see if it held material from elsewhere in the Middle East, there are occasional records in the literature suggesting Papyrus grew in Syria, but of course many of these refer to areas on the eastern banks of the Jordan River. None held, which is in itself informative.
Left - Cabinets in the beautiful, and beautifully organised Herbarium of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Right - Part of the Papyrus collection.
First things first, however, continue drying the earlier collections on the scorching roof of the Herbarium, with spectacular views of the modern city of Jerusalem.
Left - Field collected Papyrus drying on the baking roof of the Herbarium. Right - Spectacular view of part of the new City of Jerusalem from the Herbarium roof.
Two and a half days were spent reviewing, cataloging, photographing and taking morphometric measurements from the most interesting specimens, and in very helpful discussions with the Collections Manager and the Curator of the Botanic Gardens, both of whom are well aware of the significance of their Papyrus, one of the most northerly populations in the world and probably extinct everywhere in Israel apart from its Hula stronghold, and immensely knowledgeable of the Israeli flora in general.
Again, I was looking for diversity in Papyrus, particularly represented by populations outside of the Hula Valley. This was a very successful part of my research trip, the collection contains some very interesting and well preserved specimens. Interestingly, like other herbaria I’ve visited, very few of the collections were recent, it holds about 68 sheets of Papyrus:
6 collected in the ‘70s
2 collected in the ‘80’s
1 collected in the ‘90s
None collected in this Century.
Another interesting feature of the collections of Papyrus, was the number of sterile specimens collected. 27 of the specimens, over a third, were sterile. Why collect sterile material in a plant generally so freely flowering? I can only guess that the sterile heads look different and are therefore somehow enticing.
My enormous thanks to Dr. Ori Fragman-Sapir for welcoming me to Tel Aviv, an amazing tour of Old Jaffa, hosting me throughout and even accommodating me for some of the time in the University’s accommodation for students. And the same thanks to Dr. Hagar Leschner, who was extraordinarily warm and helpful, kept me going with Israeli mud coffees and above all for making my work so much easier and more efficient by making available the collections and facilities of the Herbarium.
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