Dipsacaceae

The teasel family in Belgium:
In this project we will document the Dipsacaceae, a small family of flowering herbs, sometimes treated as part of another family, the Caprifoliaceae. They have compound flowers, which means that what we more readily perceive as one flower is in fact an assemblage of many smaller individual flowers. A familiar member of this family is teasel (Dipsacus fullonum), a native species in Belgium. It was once used to comb wool to make it straight before it was spun. The leaves of teasel join at the stem to form a cup that collects rainwater. Insects tend to get trapped in this water and drown. It is thought that teasels use the nutrients from the decaying remains of these insects, which would make them carnivorous plants.

The Belgian Herbarium:
The Botanic Garden Meise holds the largest herbarium collection of Belgian plant specimens. Each of these herbarium specimens has a label with valuable information such as the plant’s identification, and when, where, and who collected the plant. These specimens can be used in many domains of research, such as conservation, evolution, ecology and systematics. These data help us to better understand the plants of Belgium, their history and that of people who collected them. There are about 200,000 specimens in the Belgian Herbarium of the Botanic Garden Meise and we want to document them all! These data will then be made available online at www.botanicalcollections.be.

Keywords (Latin):
Belgium, Dipsacaceae, Herbae, Hortus Botanicus Meise, Botanica.