Tropical naturalist collections

Montpellier xylotheque

This collection of tropical and temperate wood samples is one of the largest in the world.
It comprises more than 34 000 samples from 8400 species, 2160 genera and 235 families, from Africa, the Americas, Oceania and Europe (123 tropical and temperate countries in all). Most of the samples are linked to herbaria held by botanical institutes worldwide.

More info on the BioWooeb research unit website

French Guiana xylotheque

A collection of 2500 samples from 2500 trees representing 600 species, for various types of measurements.

More info on the ECOFOG research unit website

E-xylotheque: a selection of tropical woods

This collection comprises a selection of digital samples of tropical and temperate woods from the CIRAD xylotheque.

More about Numba, the CIRAD tropical agronomy digital library

ALF herbarium, Montpellier

For more than 60 years, CIRAD's agro-pastoralists have been studying the ecology of pastures in various tropical and Mediterranean regions, and particularly in the Sudano-Sahelian zone. Their work has given rise to a number of publications, along with a very comprehensive herbarium and a floristic database.

The herbarium contains herbaceous and woody plants representative of the steppes and grasslands of Sudanian and Sahelian zones, and also includes plants from the Guinean zone and specimens from southern Africa, the Middle East and various other countries. Almost 50 countries are represented in all in this collection of some 50 000 specimens.

More info on the SELMET research unit website