The "Herbal Azuay", a jewel of the School of Biology of the UDA

In the School of Biology of the UDA is the only herbarium of the province of Azuay, a true center of regional information on plant diversity

The initiative was born in the 1991 year with the purpose of supporting the teaching activities in the school of Biology.

But due to the development of research on regional flora and the increase of botanical collections, specimens were ordered and systematized according to international requirements and at 1998 the "Azuay Herbarium" was founded, with the sponsorship and institutional support of the Universidad del Azuay and the Foundation for Science and Technology, FUNDACYT.

Since the year 2003 the herbarium is registered in the Index Herbariorum of the New York Botanical Garden, the world and official herbarium catalog.

Currently has 12.000 collections of more than 3.000 plant species of regional flora, belonging to 220 systematically organized plant families.

It also has an important collection of the flora of the native forests of Azuay and Cañar, with emphasis on the Paute river basin, in which the collections carried out in the Cajas National Park, Dudas-Mazar, the páramos de Moriré and the Tambillo forest.

In addition, it has collections of native edible fruit trees of the region and collections of the Atocha botanical and historical garden of Liria de Ambato and approximately 1.000 collections donated from the Cordillera del Cóndor.

Within the working group that integrates the herbarium is its Director, Rafaela Ansaloni; Danilo Minga, responsible for the identification of nature and the maintenance of botanical collections; Mayra Jiménez, Nubia Guzmán, Ruth Arias and Adolfo Verdugo, who focus on research projects for the university; and finally the interns and students of Biology María Paz Guillen, Zamara Zeas, Zamara Ríos, Joel Soranca.

"The main motivation to progress with the projects and take forward the herbarium is the love of knowledge, curiosity about the life of the plants and also the awareness that without physical support of the samples of vegetation, you can not have the security of the identity of the plants, that is why the collections are always collected and conserved, "says Ansaloni.

Among the objectives of the herbarium is to document the flora of the region, basically Azuay, Cañar and Morona Santiago, from where they obtain botanical samples to be able to process them, identify them and have the base information on plant diversity.

The essential information is where the species are found, what use they have, what they are used for, their distribution and botanical identity, that is, each species must have a scientific name, or common names that are important.

The herbarium has a database on the internet where all the botanical species and collections that have been identified are documented.

"The characteristic that can be highlighted of this herbarium is that it has available to the public from outside all the information about its species and its collections in a database on the internet, the other herbaria of the country do not show society their documents", comments Danilo Minga, curator.

The process to identify and make the record of a species begins with a research project and a research permit from the Ministry of the Environment, then in the place you want to investigate the field campaign where the botanical species is collected.

After the collection, the basic data such as the date of collection, the site, geographical coordinates, photographs and information on the traditional uses of the plant are taken, making a brief description specifying if it is a tree, an herb, a plant or a flower.

Then when you reach the herbarium you go to the pressing process, which consists of crushing the species between newspapers and in a botanical press, made of wood, you proceed to the drying process.

Each sample has its code and its field data that are subsequently transmitted on labels. Finally, there is the identification process where the botanical characters are checked with the help of specialized bibliography.