Instituto de Botánica del Nordeste
Casilla de Correo 209 -
3400 Corrientes
Argentina
Dra. María Mercedes ARBO, Curator
Email: ibone@agr.unne.edu.ar
IBONE was created in 1977, with the purpose of promoting scientific research in the field of Botany, and for training researchers and technicians in the matter, and it is actually supported by the National Research Council of Argentina (CONICET). Nowadays, a total of 29 researchers, 16 technicians, and 21 PhD candidates and fellowship holders are working full-time at the Institute in different subjects: Anatomy, Cytology, Genetics of Native Grasses, Plant Physiology, and Taxonomy. This last area holds both the Herbarium and the Botanical Library. In spite of being a young institution, it is one of the best renowned in Argentina, and it has made significant contributions to the knowledge of American plants. Staff publications have appeared in many different fields, including taxonomy, evolution, biogeography, cytogenetics, palinology, biotechnology, anatomy, and ethnobotany. IBONE also gives help and support to other Herbaria, as FCQ, PY, and the Scientific Society of Paraguay, as well as providing assistance to educational and civil institutions, authorities of National and Provincial parks or reserves, and the general public.
The Herbarium, identified with the acronym CTES, includes a collection that holds more than 400,000 specimens of vascular plants mounted on numbered sheets, 30,000 lichens, and around 8,000 fungi. The Herbarium also hold several collections, such as those of Augusto G. Schulz and Romeo Carnevali. The Troels M. Pedersen collection, which was recently incorporated into the Herbarium, comprises around 32,000 samples kept in their original wooden cabinets. CTES Herbarium has valuable specimens from many different parts of the world, but the majority of them come from the North of Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil.
The Type Collection includes over 2,200 samples, which are kept separately and registered at present in an Access database, and being incorporated into Iris relational database. The most important families represented in the Type Collection are Caryophyllaceae, Cyperaceae, Fabaceae, Malvaceae, Rubiaceae, Sapindaceae, Sterculiaceae and Turneraceae. CTES Herbarium is also one of the Aluka's partners in the Latin American Plants Initiative Project (LAPI), in order to supply access to the information related to type specimens to botanists and researchers around the world.