Bangkok Herbarium

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Reianne and I continued our exploration of Kasetsart University. A few metres from the Ant Museum, we saw the Bangkok Herbarium and thought that it would be cool to see its collection of flowers and herbs. 


This is a perfect example of expectation not matching reality though because I thought we were going to see live plants with flowers in full bloom, just like in the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Instead, we saw cabinets upon cabinets filled with folders of dried specimens. I'm sure that taxonomists and systematics specialists would have a grand time exploring each shelf, looking for different plants. But I'm not even a botanist so I don't have enough training to understand the intricacies of preservation and characterisation that the scientists have done.


The herbarium staff, I think, knew immediately that we didn't know what we were looking for (because we just wanted to have a look; we weren't there for a specific plant like other visitors). So they took us to see an exhibit about the history of this herbarium. What I learned is that this herbarium is named after Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. She is a sister of the current Thai king, Maha Vajiralongkorn and she's the first real-life princess I have ever encountered. 


The herbarium contains about 80,000 plant samples. The first samples were collected by a Scottish scientist, Dr A. F. G. Kerr during the reign of King Rama VI. 

I felt like I was back at the IRRI gene bank, being in the presence of such a large collection of plants.

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