Cupressaceae

The cypress family in Belgium:
Amongst gymnosperms – “plants with naked seeds, without flowers” – the Cupressaceae (cypress family) are the most widely distributed plant family: they occur in all continents on Earth with the exception of Antarctica.
This family mostly includes trees and according to the current, most used botanical nomenclature, the largest plants in the world belong to it: the redwoods! Only some few other species grow as high or higher but none grows to be as heavy. In our herbarium, redwoods are still classified under their former family name, this is why you will not come across them in this project.
In Belgium, the common juniper (Juniperus communis) is the sole native species. However, several other species and genera are cultivated in our gardens and parks, e.g. cypresses (Cupressus) and members of Thuja inaccurately called “cedars”.

The Belgian Herbarium:
Meise Botanic Garden holds the largest herbarium collection of Belgian plant specimens. Each of these herbarium specimens has a label with valuable information such as the plant’s identification, and when, where, and who collected the plant. These specimens can be used in many domains of research, such as conservation, evolution, ecology and systematics. These data help us to better understand the plants of Belgium, their history and that of people who collected them. There are about 200,000 specimens in the Belgian Herbarium of Meise Botanic Garden and we want to document them all! These data will then be made available online at www.botanicalcollections.be.

Keywords (Latin):
Belgium, Cupressaceae, Arbores, Hortus Botanicus Meise, Botanica.