Filices variae

Smaller fern families of Belgium:
Ferns belong to a group of primitive plants which appeared on Earth even before the dinosaurs. They made the change from water to land plants. Ferns are spore producing plants without the colour and splendour we know from flowering plants, still beloved both in gardens as indoors. In nature, they mostly prefer moist, relatively shady places. In this project, we will be dealing with specimens belonging to thirteen smaller fern families which occur in Belgium. Thanks to their evolutionary history, they show a more significant diversity of forms than they would if we focused on each family individually.

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 the 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, Filices, Hortus Botanicus Meise, Botanica.