Dr. Andrew Henderson, curator at the Institute for Systematic Botany at The New York Botanical Garden, has recently returned from a five-month field survey of palm diversity in Vietnam. While studying at Montgomery Botanical Center (MBC) this week, Dr. Henderson presented a seminar on the palm diversity of Vietnam based on this fieldwork.

Working in collaboration with Dr. Ninh Khac Ban of The Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources, Dr. Henderson collected palm specimens from throughout Vietnam. The survey sought to also investigate the sustainability of rattan harvesting activities in Vietnam. This fieldwork discovered a great number of palm species new to science.

The large volume of new botanical discoveries from Dr. Henderson’s fieldwork highlights the continuing ongoing need for basic phytogeographic research in many areas of the world. There remains a great deal of plant diversity yet to be described.

Dr. Henderson is a longtime collaborator of MBC, having spent several summers here performing detailed morphological studies. He is author of several books on the palm family, including Evolution and Ecology of Palms, and A Field Guide to the Palms of the Americas.