Many herbarium sets in Europe are still being catalogued and it is likely that many old-type collections are yet to be discovered. This research has the potential to facilitate the study of the biodiversity of many regions, especially regions for which collections are extremely scarce. This has been confirmed by a case study using Juncus (Juncaceae) examining the turbulent history of botanical collections at the WRSL herbarium and the evaluation of its importance to the study of taxonomy and biodiversity since 1821. The analysis revealed that the WRSL collection is rich in types (ca. 3.6%) and we identified 76 (of 78) new, historically and nomenclaturally important specimens (types, original material and so-called “topotypes”). Some of these type specimens represent duplicates of these that were stored in Berlin and destroyed during World War II. Many of the type specimens are from the United States of America, South Africa, India, and Canada. The largest number of Juncus type specimens stored at WRSL originate from South Africa (42.3% of all type specimens), even though Juncus is rare in Africa. Our study highlights that uncatalogued old collections that are under-explored and under-exploited have the potential to facilitate the discovery of specimens important for the study of biodiversity, conservation, taxonomy and nomenclature.

中文翻译：

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在动荡的历史中鲜为人知的古老草丛中可以存储多少种标本？-Juncus案例研究揭示了它们在分类学和生物多样性研究中的重要性。

欧洲的许多植物标本室集仍在分类中，很可能尚未发现许多旧类型的标本集。这项研究有可能促进对许多地区，尤其是极度缺乏资源的地区的生物多样性的研究。案例研究证实了这一点，即使用Juncus（菊科）检查了WRSL植物标本室的植物集合的动荡历史并评估了自1821年以来其在分类学和生物多样性研究中的重要性。分析表明，WRSL集合中富含类型（约3.6％），我们确定了76个（共78个）新的，历史上和命名上重要的标本（类型，原始材料和所谓的“拓扑类型”）。其中一些类型的标本代表了这些标本的复制品，这些标本被存放在柏林，并在第二次世界大战期间被摧毁。许多类型的标本来自美国，南非，印度和加拿大。尽管Juncus在非洲很少见，但WRSL储存的Juncus型标本数量最多，来自南非（占所有类型标本的42.3％）。我们的研究突出表明，未充分利用和未充分利用的未分类目录的旧馆藏有可能促进发现标本，这些标本对于研究生物多样性，保护，分类学和术语具有重要意义。