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Forest Herbarium (BKF)

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Forest Herbarium
Forest Herbarium logo: a grey flower drawing above the letters BKF and 'Forest Herbarium', beside the Thai name of the Forest Botany Division and a 95th-anniversary mark
Type Government herbarium
Website botany.dnp.go.th
Founded 1930
Base Chatuchak, Bangkok, Thailand
Scope Thailand
Focus Plant taxonomy, botanical inventory for the Flora of Thailand, forest ecology and ethnobotany
Other sites Specimen database


The Forest Herbarium (BKF; Thai: หอพรรณไม้) is the herbarium of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation of Thailand, in Bangkok.[1] The Royal Forest Department set it up in 1930 to keep the specimens from its plant surveys.[2] In August 2018 it held about 300,000 preserved specimens, mainly of flowering plants and ferns collected in Thailand.[3] Its specimen database lists 25 sheets of Cannabis, collected between 1933 and 1999.[4]

History

The herbarium's own history dates the Royal Forest Department's plant collecting to 1906 (B.E. 2449). The British forest officer H. B. G. Garrett was in charge, and the early surveys concentrated on plants of economic value. In 1930 (B.E. 2473) the department assigned Phraya Winit Wanandon to establish a herbarium formally, to keep the specimens from its surveys.[2] Thawatchai Santisuk's editorial for the herbarium's 80th anniversary gives the same year. It places the founding ten years after that of the Bangkok Herbarium (BK) of the Department of Technical Agriculture, and names Phraya Winit Wanandon as the first director.[5] Index Herbariorum gives 1905 as the founding year.[1]

The herbarium later passed from the Royal Forest Department to the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, which was inaugurated in 2002.[6][7] The herbarium's Thai timeline dates the transfer to B.E. 2546 (2003). The unit has been renamed several times since. In July 2026 it became the Forest Botany Division (ส่วนพฤกษศาสตร์ป่าไม้) of the department's Forest and Plant Conservation Research Division.[2] It occupies the second to fifth floors of the Natural History Museum building at 61 Phahonyothin Road, Chatuchak.[2][8]

Collections and work

The herbarium conducts botanical inventories and taxonomic research for the Flora of Thailand project. It also surveys and classifies Thai forest types and supervises the country's botanical gardens and arboreta.[3] It publishes the journal Thai Forest Bulletin (Botany), first issued by the Royal Forest Department in 1954.[9][10] Its database lists 956 type specimens.[4]

The collections include those of Garrett, who collected in northern Thailand between 1899 and 1959, and of the forest officer Phraya Vanprueck Phicharn, who collected between 1912 and 1920. They also include the collections of Khid Suvarnasuddhi from 1936 to 1942 and of Tem Smitinand from 1947 onwards. Between 1947 and 1977 Smitinand organised a group of Thai collectors to explore different parts of the country. A. F. G. Kerr, who collected in Thailand between 1902 and 1932, deposited his complete set at Kew and the British Museum.[11]

Cannabis in the Flora of Thailand

Chamlong Phengklai's treatment of the hemp family, then called Cannabidaceae, appeared in volume 2, part 4 of the Flora of Thailand in 1981. It records Cannabis sativa as the family's only representative in Thailand, grown under cultivation.[12] The species account gives its range in Thailand as "Northern, North-Eastern and Central: cultivated only". The account gives the vernacular names กัญชา (kancha) and, in central Thailand, กัญชาจีน (kancha chin). It records two uses: fibre from the stems of male plants for rope and textiles, "especially Hill-Tribes in northern Thailand", and the leaves of female plants smoked as a drug.[13] The later account of the Cannabaceae in volume 13, part 1 (2015) refers Cannabis back to the 1981 treatment.[14]

Cannabis specimens

A slender, sparsely leaved cannabis plant pressed on a herbarium sheet, with a printed Forest Herbarium label at the foot giving the local name Kan cha
Sheet SN 009261, Suvarnakoses 213 (1951), from Khiri Wong in Nakhon Si Thammarat. Its label records the plant as a garden crop used for smoking.

The specimen database lists 25 Cannabis sheets under 19 accession numbers, none of them type material. Twenty-four are from Thailand. The other, Banerjee 263 (1964), was collected by S. P. Banerjee at Motihari, in India, in 1964.[4] The sheets include Garrett 851 (1933) and Garrett 852 (1933), both collected by Garrett on 2 December 1933. They also include five sheets of Suvannasuddhi 457 (1940), a single gathering made at the Forestry School in Phrae on 1 August 1940.[4] A sheet collected by P. Suvarnakoses at Khiri Wong in Nakhon Si Thammarat on 16 December 1951 describes the plant as a crop in a garden, "Used for smoking".[15]

Catalogue and images

The herbarium's website went online in its current form on 27 July 2009.[3] The specimen database and its sheet images are published under the footer "© Forest Herbarium All Rights Reserved".[15] The department's publisher record on GBIF lists no published datasets.[16]

Accessions

Accessions held at the Forest Herbarium.

 CollectorCollectedCountryCatalogue number
Banerjee 263 (1964)S. P. BanerjeeIndiaSN 063406
Bjørnland 356 (1978)ThailandSN 009246
Bunchuai 1208 (1962)K. BunchuaiThailandSN 009249
Garrett 851 (1933)H. B. G. GarrettThailandSN 009247
Garrett 852 (1933)H. B. G. GarrettThailandSN 009248
Nakkan 213 (1948)D. NakkanThailandSN 009255
Nanakorn 7031 (1996)W. NanakornThailandSN 262497
Nanakorn 8642 (1999)W. NanakornThailandSN 262600; SN 262601
Nuphakdi 14 (1945)C. NuphakdiThailandSN 009260
Phengklai T-49897 (1984)Chamlong PhengklaiThailandSN 116705
Phengnaren 483 (1968)S. PhengnarenThailandSN 009259
Praphat 729 (1968)D. PraphatThailandSN 009258
S.P. 15 (1968)ThailandSN 009256
Suvannasuddhi 457 (1940)S. SuvannasuddhiThailandSN 009251; SN 009252; SN 232958; SN 232959; SN 232960
Suvarnakoses 1437 (1958)P. SuvarnakosesThailandSN 009253
Suvarnakoses 213 (1951)P. SuvarnakosesThailandSN 009261

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation: Forest Herbarium (BKF)". Index Herbariorum. New York Botanical Garden. Retrieved 4 October 2026.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "ความเป็นมา" [History]. ส่วนพฤกษศาสตร์ป่าไม้ (Forest Botany Division) (in ไทย). Retrieved 4 October 2026.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Forest Botany Division". Forest Herbarium. Retrieved 4 October 2026.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 "Collections: BKF's plant specimens database". Forest Herbarium. Retrieved 4 October 2026.
  5. ↑ Santisuk, Thawatchai (2010). "The Forest Herbarium 80th anniversary". Thai Forest Bulletin (Botany) (38). Retrieved 4 October 2026.
  6. ↑ "Flora of Thailand: overview". Forest Herbarium. Retrieved 4 October 2026.
  7. ↑ Chayamarit, Kongkanda; Simpson, David A. (2020). "Obituary: Prof. Dr Thawatchai Santisuk (1944–2020)". Thai Forest Bulletin (Botany). 48 (2): i. doi:10.20531/tfb.2020.48.2.ob.
  8. ↑ "Forest Herbarium". Forest Herbarium. Retrieved 4 October 2026.
  9. ↑ "About the Journal". Thai Forest Bulletin (Botany). Retrieved 4 October 2026.
  10. ↑ "Thai Forest Bulletin (Botany)". Forest Herbarium. Retrieved 4 October 2026.
  11. ↑ "Collections & Collectors, a history in Thailand". Forest Herbarium. Retrieved 4 October 2026.
  12. ↑ Phengklai, Chamlong (1981). "Cannabidaceae". Flora of Thailand, volume 2, part 4. pp. 392–394. Retrieved 4 October 2026 – via e-Flora of Thailand, Forest Herbarium.
  13. ↑ Phengklai, Chamlong (1981). "Cannabis sativa L.". Flora of Thailand, volume 2, part 4. p. 392. Retrieved 4 October 2026 – via e-Flora of Thailand, Forest Herbarium.
  14. ↑ Phuphathanaphong, Leena (2015). "Cannabaceae". Flora of Thailand, volume 13, part 1. pp. 77–95. Retrieved 4 October 2026 – via e-Flora of Thailand, Forest Herbarium.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Specimen 009261: Cannabis sativa L." Forest Herbarium specimen database. Retrieved 4 October 2026.
  16. ↑ "Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 4 October 2026.
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