Laboratories
All faculty of the PPGBot working at the National Museum and their respective laboratories are installed in the Botany Department building. The fully air-conditioned building houses the secretariat of the Department, 11 faculty cabinets and the laboratories of Reproductive Anatomy (reproductive axis and associated secretory structures); Floral and Reproductive Biology; Phycology (algal taxonomy and phytoplancton ecology); Palynology; Island and Montane Floristics and Biogeography, Angiosperm Taxonomy and Ethnobotany, Systematics of Bromeliaceae, and Aquatic Plants. The Microalgae laboratory is currently housed in a container near the PPGBot secretariat (even though this is not adequate). A small Molecular Biology laboratory is currently being installed with a themocycler and a refrigerated centrifuge with the support grants of “Pro-equipamentos da CAPES/2014” and the projects of Prof. Mariângela Menezes. The laboratories are equipped with optical stereomicroscopes and with equipments specific to each activity. The Department has equipment for general use such as an Olympus BX-51 optical stereomicroscope (equipped with phase-contrast, DIC, epifluorescence and an image capturing system); an Olympus HB-2 stereomicroscope with an image capturing system; an inverted Zeiss Axio Observer A1 (with image capturing system and epifluorescence), an inverted Olympus stereomicroscope with image capturing system, an inverted Zeiss Axiovert 10 microscope and a Leica M205 C (with Z-stack composite image capturing system); a multiparametric probe for analysis of physical and chemical properties of water; a subaquatic radiometer; precision balances, kils of various sizes, water bath, heated magnetic stirrer, ultrassonic washer, centrifuges, germination chamber, flowboxes, autoclave, water distiller, knifemaker, rotary microtomes and an ultramicrotome. Furthermore the laboratories have projectors, computers, printers, freezes and refigerators. The Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) used by students of the PPGBot was acquired by the National Museum with support from “Petrobras Ambiental”.
Herbarium
The Botany Building also harbors the Herbarium of the Botany Department (acronym R), currently one of the largest scientific collections of fungi and plants in Latin America. The collection consists of approximately 600,000 voucher specimens and 7,400 nomenclatural types. Officially the herbarium was founded in 1831 by the naturalist Ludwig Riedel with the support of Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff. Historical material in R was collected by Glaziou, Rabenhorst, Freire Allemão, Brade, Hoehne, Lutz, Riedel, Schwacke, Sellow, and more recently by Álvaro Silveira, Sampaio, Vidal, Mello-Filho, Emmerich and Prance, among others. The herbarium occupies the third (upper) floor of the Botany Building (ca. 550 m2) and is organized on compactors. The intense use of the herbarium by students justifies the line of research “Biological Collections” with the project “The National Museum Herbarium: 180 years of teaching and research” which provides graduate students with subprojects do develop their monographs, often with grants of “scientific initiation” by the State grant agency FAPERJ. In 2016, the herbarium received 227 visiting researchers from Brazil and abroad, being 160 professionals and 67 postgraduate students. Teaching staff not working at the Museum are affiliated, for instance, at the Botany Department of the Instituto de biologia do Centro de Ciências e Saúde-CCS/UFRJ; Faculdade de Farmácia-CCS/UFRJ, Botany Department of the Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro; Botany Department of the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro; General Biology Department of the Universidade Federal Fluminense and the Instituto de Pesquisas Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro. In those institutions the alumni also have collections, libraries, microscopy equipments, molecular biology facilities etc. to their avail in the areas of Plant Anatomy, Angiosperm Taxonomy and Cryptogam Ecology.
Information technology
The secretariat and all laboratories of the PPGBot are equipped with information technology with access to the Intra and Internet through wireless connections, which allows a perfect information integration and the use of personal notebooks as well as those of the PPGBot. The secretariat has a monochrome laser printer and a color ink-jet printer. Four datashow projectors and laptops are available for theoretical classes. Each floor of the Botany Department is equipped with a large laser printer for collective use.
Libraries
The central library of the National Museum has over 400,000 volumes. The acquisition of several titles has been requested and some of them have been acquired. Many periodicals are acquired through exchange. The existing library holdings partly covers the needs of our alumni. The collection of rare titles, so necessary in taxonomic studies, stands out as one of the best (if not the best) in our country. The libraries of the Rio de Janeiro Botanic Garden, Instututo Oswaldo Cruz and of the CCS/UFRJ complement the consultation options for faculty and alumni, along with the crucial access to the online Scientific Journal Port (Portal de Periódicos CAPES). Furthermore the PPGBot acquired recent taxonomy works through the first round of the Taxonomy Capacitation Program of the grant agency CNPq (PROTAX).
Study rooms
Rooms for students, with computers and stereomicroscopes.
Classroom
Space reserved for teaching.
