Field Guide to the Trees of Southern Thailand
Anacardiaceae fruits from Southern Thailand. Photo: Simon Gardner.
Southern Thailand includes the area south of the Isthmus of Kra to the border with Malaysia, and is the meeting point of the Thai and Malesian Floras. This project will prepare a Field Guide to the Trees of Southern Thailand. The guide will describe approximately 1,000 of the estimated 2,500 tree species from the region and will illustrate approximately 500 of these with line drawings and high quality photographs.
The project is currently undertaking an extensive collecting programme in Southern Thailand with two sets of specimens sent to the Bangkok Forest Herbarium and RBG Kew. Specimens are identified by specialists as well as project members in the partner institutions. In addition, specimen databases are being generated from the collecting programme as well as from historical collections. Specimens have been received at partner institutions since the beginning of 2004 and identification has been ongoing since then. The aim is to complete the collecting programme by the end of 2006 with publication of the guide scheduled for the end of 2007.
The guide will fill a taxonomic need in Thailand and the surrounding regions and will complement the successful Field Guide to the Trees of Northern Thailand published in 2000, now in its third print run, and used by botanists throughout SE Asia. Botanical and conservation training will be conducted with partners during the project. The guide, to be published in Thai and English, will be useful for conservation, ecological, horticultural and ethnobotanical research in the region as well as for educational purposes and ecotourism.
Project Team
Project Leader: Utteridge, Timothy
Herbarium
Rogier de Kok, Timothy Utteridge
Project Partners and Collaborators
Thailand
Bangkok Forest Herbarium (BKF), National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department, Bangkok
Funders
Thailand
Toyota