Biagio Bartalini's herbarium: a floristic archive of Siena biodiversity in the 18th century

Italian physician and botanist Biagio Bartalini (1750-1822) was a lecturer at the University of Siena, director of the University botanic garden and a leading member of Academy of Fisiocritici. He was the first to catalogue the vascular flora of the city of Siena. He collected vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens, fungi and algae around the town and created an herbarium, which is currently kept at the Academy of Fisiocritici. In 1776 he published a catalogue "Catalogo delle piante che nascono spontaneamente intorno alla città di Siena'' (“Catalogue of spontaneous plants around the town of Siena”) of all the species he had collected. Over the years, many authors have studied this herbarium, one of the oldest in the world, but the entire collection has never been revised. In this study we revised the sample identifications and created a database and digital archive of all the specimens. The database contains the following information on each sample: Bartalini’s identification, other authors’ revisions, current species name and conservation status, locality, habitat and a high-resolution photograph. The herbarium contains 568 specimens of vascular plants, 76 bryophytes, 29 lichens, one fungus and one alga. The revised specimens belong to 86 families, 325 genera, and 524 species. The collection includes 23 taxa alien to Italy, mostly crop and ornamental archaeophytes (12 species). There are also some rare species recorded before 1950 or never reported from the province of Siena according to Wikiplantbase Toscana (1). Among the herbarium samples, 25 species are included in European, Italian and Tuscan Red Lists, while 13 species are in the European list of threatened arable plants. Bryophytes include 12 liverwort samples (both thalloid and foliose) and 57 moss samples; most are species common to rocky habitats, forest floors and open mineral soils. There are also species typical of mountain areas, rivers and calcareous springs. The 29 samples of lichens include 8 species that are currently considered rather rare (2 species), rare (3 species) and extremely rare (3 species) in Tuscany; most have fruticose or foliose habitus, and many are now classified as species of mountain habitats. Study of the herbarium revealed important information about the flora of the past, including species of conservation concern such as endemic, wetland and segetal taxa that are no longer found due to urban expansion. The results provide a basis for future resampling and the opportunity to discover how the biodiversity of the study area has changed in the last 200 years under climate change and variations in land use.