Gillet s.n., Wombali (1908)
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| Gillet s.n. herbarium specimen, Wombali (1908) | |
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| Gillet s.n., Wombali (1908) | |
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| Gillet s.n., held by Meise Botanic Garden as catalogue BR0000014662690 (CC BY 4.0) | |
| At a Glance | |
| Classification | Other |
| Location | |
| Country | Democratic Republic of the Congo |
| Province/State | Mai-Ndombe |
| Locality | Wombali |
| Coordinates | -3.27589, 17.36937 |
| Collection | |
| Method | Herbarium specimen |
| Sourcing Type | Historical |
| Date | 1908-10 |
| Collector | J. Gillet |
| Specimen | |
| Repository | Meise Botanic Garden |
| Catalogue Number | BR0000014662690 |
| Collector Number | Gillet, J. s.n. |
| Scientific Name | Cannabis sativa L. |
| Occurrence Record | View occurrence record |
Gillet s.n., Wombali is an accession record for a pressed herbarium specimen of Cannabis sativa collected at Wombali, in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo and was then the Congo Free State, in October 1908 by J. Gillet. Meise Botanic Garden holds the sheet as catalogue BR0000014662690.[1] GBIF publishes the gathering as preserved specimen occurrence 1839971842.[2] The sheet carries no collector number, so it is titled by collector, locality and year.
Collection and locality
A large handwritten label on brown paper reads Chanvre indigène, indigenous hemp, above the place name Wombali, the month octobre and Gillet's signature.[3] The catalogue and GBIF both give the date as October 1908, with no day.[1][2]
Specimen and identification
The sheet is annotated with the symbol for a female plant, so the mounted material is pistillate.[3] The catalogue determination is Cannabis sativa L.[1] The collector's own label calls the plant indigenous hemp, which records how he understood it rather than establishing its origin; the phrase was in ordinary use for locally grown hemp in the period and is reported here as his wording.
The collector's own flora
Two years after this gathering Gillet published a flora of the Kisantu region with E. Pâque, which enters Cannabis sativa under the Kikongo name diamba and states that hemp is cultivated only for the use smokers make of it.[4]
Wombali lies well to the north of the region that flora covers, so the Kikongo name recorded there cannot be carried across to this sheet. What the two records share is the observer: the chanvre indigène written on this label and the statement of purpose printed in the flora are Gillet's account of the same plant, two years apart.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Cannabis sativa L., specimen BR0000014662690". Botanical Collections. Meise Botanic Garden. Retrieved 15 September 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Occurrence 1839971842: Cannabis sativa L." GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 15 September 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Digitised sheet BR0000014662690: Cannabis sativa L." Meise IIIF image service. Meise Botanic Garden. Retrieved 15 September 2026.
- ↑ Gillet, J.; Pâque, E. (1910). Plantes principales de la région de Kisantu: leur nom indigène, leur nom scientifique, leurs usages (PDF). Annales du Musée du Congo Belge, Botanique, Série V, Notes botaniques sur la région du Bas- et Moyen-Congo, fascicule I (in français). Brussels: Spineux. p. 12. Retrieved 16 September 2026.