Raw Materials Herbarium & Museum, Delhi (RHMD) at CSIR-NIScPR houses authentic samples of various economically important raw materials of plant, animal and mineral origin from India at one place. It was established in 1978 as an adjunct to the Wealth of India, then an eleven-volume encyclopedia of Indian raw materials. It has approximately 8000 herbarium specimens of economic and medicinal plants of India and 3000 samples of important crude plant drugs, animals and minerals.
The CSIR-NIScPR Herbarium & Museum has been assigned the acronym RHMD (Raw Materials Herbarium & Museum, Delhi) by the International Association for Plant Taxonomy, which appeared in the publication "Index Herbarium, New York, USA" (1990).
This facility is backed up by the Wealth of India-Raw Materials series, an encyclopedic publication comprising monographic articles on plants, animals and mineral resources of the country and the economic products derived from them. The whole series covers more than 6000 plant-species, 52 articles on animals and their products and 73 articles on minerals.
The mandate of CSIR-NIScPR is to disseminate quality science among the researchers & academicians, and inculcate scientific temper in common man. The RHMD is an important section that attracts the attention of all those who visit CSIR-NIScPR, be it national/international guests/delegates of repute or young school students. It has evoked good response and feedback from the students of the scientist-student connect program, "JIGYASA". It is also frequently visited by students and researchers who have an interest in natural resources and medicinal plants.
CSIR-NIScPR has published “Handbook on Herbaria in India and Neighboring Countries”, as a source of reference on repositories of plant wealth of the sub-continent. This publication is a useful guide for information on the availability of specimens, especially Angiosperms and also special group of plants like Algae, Fungi, Lichens, etc.
CSIR-NIScPR has also published a book entitled “Field Manual on Herbarium Techniques”. The book highlights the current approaches for the use of state-of-art technology for collection of plant specimens from various groups of plants, their preservation, identification, nomenclature, methods of documentation of information of plants and management of herbaria and other relevant areas associated with herbarium techniques and research. The book is useful to the persons working as herbarium curators, teachers, scientists, foresters, research scholars, students and those who are interested in setting up herbaria.
Contact Person : Dr. Subha Rastogi email: srastogi@niscpr.res.in, rhmd@niscpr.res.in
