Visiting researchers

CENAR and UAE University

We were happy to receive a visit from Centre for Natural Products Research and Drug Discovery (CENAR) Universiti Malaya. Prof. Madya Dr Hazim Khalifa from United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) was accompanied by Messrs. Nazil, Kasful, Aiman from CENAR and a masters student, Nicola studying Zingiberaceae.

The group visited our herbarium where they learnt that some of our specimens are older than the herbarium itself and they saw the varieties of leaf formation for Ficus deltoidea. Afterwards they were shown to the exhibition hall where our 50th anniversary exhibits are still up and learned about wildlife trafficking of the golden chicken and how villagers drank special water from a crying tree. Lastly we headed up to the medicinal plants area in the garden where we shared stories of sireh chewing people we have encountered.

Universiti Brunei Darussalam

Delegates from UBD arrived to do knowledge sharing and exchanging experience in botanic garden management with ex-director of Rimba Ilmu, Emeritus Prof Dato Haji Mohamed bin Abdul Majid.

Houari Boumediene University, Algeria

Prof. Dr Farid from the Faculty of Chemistry of Houari Boumediene University, Algeria came over to our herbarium accompanied by a few research officers from CENAR and the chemistry department of Universiti Malaya. Prof. Farid was interested in seeing our olive tree specimen as it is Algeria's national tree. We also engaged in a very fruitful discussion on the importance of herbariums before going down to the exhibition hall where the delegates were shown our dried specimen of wild pandan fruit and Dendrocalamus giganteus, the biggest bamboo species in the world.