TRT - The ROM Vascular Plant Herbarium
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N 43° 40.110 W 079° 23.670
17T E 629434 N 4836307
The ROM Vascular Plant Herbarium is known by its acronym, TRT. TRT is a collection of over 300,000 specimens and associated photographic and other material that primarily documents the flora of Ontario.
Waymark Code: WMBCRD
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 05/06/2011
Views: 21
The ROM Vascular Plant Herbarium has the fifth largest vascular plant collection in Canada, after Québec (QFA), Ottawa (CAN, DAO), and Montréal (MT). It is thus a major source of Canadian plants, and probably has the best collection of Ontario material in the world. TRT also serves as a depository for voucher specimens of Canadian and other plants from a wide range of research projects at the ROM and the University of Toronto.
Research activity in Botany at the ROM has improved TRT coverage of Rosaceae subfamily Maloideae (studies by T. A. Dickinson, students, and collaborators) and of the flora of Grenada (studies by J. H. McAndrews and K. Barbour, students, and collaborators at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad; Barbour & McAndrews 1995). Public service activity includes not only support for regional Ontario floristic projects (such as this page), but also plant identifications, particularly (in the past, anyway) in response to calls referred by the Poison Control Center at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto (Metsger 1990).
The mandate of the ROM Green Plant Herbarium is to develop and make responsible use of collections of specimens and associated documents which, as fully as possible within the limitations of available resources, represent the state of knowledge of living and Quaternary species of vascular and cryptogamic plants; to exhibit, study and carry out research on these collections and the living organisms they represent, to make the collections available to qualified individuals for research or reference, and to disseminate information based on them. An crucial component of this mandate is TRT's involvement in undergraduate and graduate student training at the University of Toronto.
The ROM Green Plant Herbarium comprises three principal collections: the vascular plants, a collection of Quaternary sediment cores, macro- and microfossils, and modern reference material (pollen, seeds, etc.) assembled during the career of Curator Emeritus Dr J. H. McAndrews, and the collections of Bryophytes formerly located in the Cryptogamic Herbarium (TRTC).
The ROM Green Plant Herbarium curator carries out research, and teaches in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto at both the undergraduate and graduate level, in addition to their collection and other responsibilities. These activities are funded not only by the university and by the ROM, but also by research grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and other agencies. Opportunities for post-graduate research thus exist with the Botany curator.
ROM botanical collections and research activities are featured in a number of ROM galleries, notably "Patrick and Barbara Keenan Family Gallery of Hands-on Biodiversity," and the recently opened second floor "Schad Gallery of Biodiversity."
Herbarium Acronym: TRT
Institution Association: University
Type of Structure: Not seperate
City: Toronto
Special Collections: Vascular plants, a collection of Quaternary sediment cores, macro- and microfossils, and modern reference material (pollen, seeds, etc.)
Visitation possible: no
Index Herbariorum Site Link: [Web Link]
Special Projects: Not listed
Parking: Not Listed
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