Cuatrecasas herbarium

The herbarium of Josep Cuatrecasas Arumí (1903-1996) was sent to Barcelona from Washington by Cuatrecasas himself, since his intention was to study it when he returned to Catalonia. The definite donation of this collection to the Botanical Institute of Barcelona (IBB) happened in 1997, along with books and glass photographic slides that belonged to him.

Cuatrecasas studied the flora of the Sierra de Mágina (Jaén) in his doctoral thesis and in 1931 began to work at the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid as head of the tropical flora section. In 1939, he emigrated to Colombia were he began a vigorous sample collection in order to study the flora of the country. Finally, in 1947 he moved to the USA where he continued his research career until his death at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington.

The collection conserved at the IBB contains about 3,900 samples collected in Colombia and Peru by Cuatrecasas and other botanists such as Guillermo Klug or Ellsworth Paine Killip. It includes type specimens that are duplicated from those preserved at the Smithsonian Institution.

For the LAPI project (Latin American Plants Initiative) 326 specimens were digitalized which include types and interesting sheets, along with some scientific documents of his works. Most types correspond to taxa described by Cuatrecasas. This collection is still in process of being catalogued and for the moment the database includes only 416 sheets.

 
Online queries
 

There are only 416 computerized sheets that area available at GBIF portal on the following link (exportation date: November 2019).

  • 416 specimens (0.54%)
  • 289 type specimens
  • 327 specimens with images (0.09%)
  • 5 specimens including geographic coordinates (0.48%)
 
References
  • Jerez, D. 2005. José Cuatrecasas y Arumi, un sabio olvidado. Contraluz: Revista de la Asociación Cultural Arturo Cerdá y Rico Rico 2: 49–56. Dialnet
  • Montserrat, J. M. 1997. Josep Cuatrecasas i Arumí: notes per a una biografia. Collectanea Botanica 23: 171–180. Digital.CSIC