Odile Weber : “The Naturmusée is a place of curiosity, where evidence, discovery and dialogue meet.”

Odile Weber is a botanist at the MNHNL. Between Luxembourg’s herbarium collections and the landscapes of Ethiopia, scientific nomenclature and debates surrounding colonial legacies, she reflects on the role of museums: how can they transmit knowledge while also making visible the uncertainties, debates, and multiple perspectives important to science?

Odile, could you briefly summarize your background? What led you to work at the MNHNL?

I studied in the UK, where I also worked at the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It was at Kew that I developed many of the professional practices that still shape my work today: curation of a scientific collection, rigorous documentation, and specimen-based international research.

Since 2017, I have worked in the botany section of the Naturmusée. My main responsibilities involve the day-to-day curation of the herbarium collections and botanical research projects, particularly in collaboration with colleagues in Ethiopia.

Why Ethiopia specifically?

Ethiopia offers extraordinary opportunities for botanical research because much of its biodiversity is still incompletely documented. I took part in a first botanical expedition to Ethiopia in 2013, before joining the Naturmusée. For me, Ethiopia has become a professional and a personal constant. I already had professional contacts with botanists working in Ethiopia, some of whom worked on the Flora of Ethiopia and Eritrea project. The project took 30 years to complete and produced the first comprehensive academic flora of those countries.

Today, I am working to strengthen ties between the Natrumusée and the National Herbarium of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa. The collaboration is based on scientific exchange and mutual learning; knowledge and expertise flow in both directions, and both institutions contribute to the long-term documentation of biodiversity.

Why is it important to study biodiversity on an international scale, particularly in countries such as Ethiopia?

Species distributions rarely coincide with political borders. Some plants are native to both Luxembourg and Ethiopia. One example is Scabiosa columbaria.

Studying biodiversity internationally is also important because it reveals patterns of genetic diversity that may be invisible at a national scale. I became particularly aware of this through my involvement in a recent publication on strategies for conserving agrobiodiversity. Take wheat, for example: the varieties grown in Europe are heavily selected and genetically homogenized. In Ethiopia, there is still a great diversity of local varieties.

Ethiopia is one of the centres of origin of cultivated plants identified by the Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov, whose work laid important foundations for modern plant genetics and agronomy. Maintaining this diversity in situ is important not only for Ethiopia, but also for global food security, as these genetic resources may prove essential for adapting agriculture to future environmental change. This is precisely why, as a botanist from Luxembourg, I care about plant diversity in Ethiopia: conserving biodiversity in one part of the world can have consequences far beyond its place of origin.

What is your role at the Naturmusée?

We have received significant collections in recent years. Specimen label information is entered into the in-house database, the specimens are photographed and incorporated into the main collection. This kind of work may seem routine, but it is what makes collections more visible and useful. By making specimen data accessible through portals such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the Naturmusée’s collections can be explored and studied by researchers and the public, both in Luxembourg and internationally.

Do these collections also help document species loss?

Yes. For example, a species of Drosera – a carnivorous plant – was once native to Luxembourg but disappeared after many wetlands were drained. Other species associated with very wet habitats have also been lost from the national territory. Herbarium specimens allow us to trace these regional extinctions.

Where does your passion for plants come from?

I grew up on a farm, where being close to nature was part of everyday life. I was always fascinated by the diversity of plants and by why different species grow in different places. I have always been deeply curious about understanding the world I live in. There is always more to observe and discover.

How does the LUX herbarium contribute to scientific research and biodiversity conservation?

Herbaria are long-term scientific infrastructures: the value of a specimen often increases over time as new questions and new methods emerge. The national herbarium of Luxembourg, known internationally by the acronym LUX, documents the occurrence and identity of species in Luxembourg and elsewhere. Each specimen is proof that a plant existed at a specific place at a given time.

The Red List of the vascular plants of Luxembourg, published in 2005 and updated in 2025, are underpinned by voucher specimens that document the occurrence of the species included. Herbarium collections are particularly important for species that have become locally extinct, as the specimens provide direct evidence that these plants once occurred in Luxembourg.

LUX also houses a considerable number of type specimens, the reference specimens on which scientific names are based, particularly in the mycology collection. Even when a scientific name is no longer the accepted name for a species and becomes a synonym, its type specimen remains the permanent reference that anchors that name in nomenclature.

Preserving samples means preserving biological material. Certain analyses may become possible in the future. Specimens preserved today may answer questions that we do not yet know how to ask.

Is there a specimen that particularly fascinates you?

It is difficult for me to choose just one specimen, because each carries a fascinating story – whether scientific, historical, or personal.

The Drosera specimens remind me of a project I conducted in secondary school as part of the Jonk Fuerscher National Contest. My research question was whether a Drosera could digest a dead mouse that had fallen onto its leaves. If I remember correctly, the data were inconclusive – but this experiment introduced me to the scientific method: formulating a hypothesis, conducting experiments, analysing results, and drawing conclusions from the evidence available.

Another specimen that fascinates me is a small fern collected by the Italian botanist Rodolfo Emilio Giuseppe Pichi-Sermolli during an expedition around Lake Tana in Ethiopia in 1937. That expedition resulted in the description of more than thirty species new to science. The specimen reached the LUX herbarium through André Lawalrée, a fern specialist who collaborated with Pichi-Sermolli.

To me, the story of this specimen evokes another era: a time when botanists built private herbaria, freely exchanged specimens, and participated in large-scale flora projects. These floras and inventories are part of a cumulative scientific process and remain essential tools for understanding and studying biodiversity today.

In this tradition, my work seeks to continue this long-term endeavour by describing new species and building upon the foundation laid by previous botanists.

In your view, what responsibilities do museums have regarding the legacies – particularly colonial ones – embedded in their collections, narratives, and modes of presentation?

To answer this question better, I should probably start by reading the recent volume Umgang mit kolonialen Objekten der Naturkunde: Empfehlungen, Forschung, Reflexionen. It shows just how seriously natural history museums are taking these questions.

This is essential: it is not enough for any national museum to decide on its own how to deal with collections originating from colonial contexts. It is equally important to involve the countries and communities from which the preserved objects, whether scientific specimens, ethnobotanical artefacts, ethnographical objects or works of art, originate.

Like many natural history museums, the Naturmusée holds collections from many parts of the world, which means that these questions are also relevant to us.  Some of our collections have histories that are intertwined with colonial contexts and in some cases, even predate the museum itself. They contributed to the emergence of a national natural history museum in Luxembourg.

Within the scientific community, concerns about ethical practice have already influenced both scientific practice and nomenclature. The Convention on Biological Diversity for example promotes equitable collaboration and benefit sharing, while the botanical community decided at the International Botanical Congress in 2024 to change a scientific name that had become a racial slur in certain African contexts.

Is a scientific name an immutable truth?

People often think scientific names never change. However, name changes reflect how the science of classification constantly updates itself with new discoveries.

Each name corresponds to a scientific hypothesis: namely, that a group of individuals defined by a particular combination of characteristics constitutes a coherent evolutionary unit whose boundaries may still be re-evaluated. Once a species has been named, that name remains an official element of nomenclature. At the same time, names may change as knowledge evolves through new data, new interpretations, or revisions of classification systems.

There are different approaches in taxonomy. Some specialists group a wide range of morphological or genetic diversity under a single name; others tend to distinguish multiple species based on sometimes very minor differences.

Moreover, nomenclatural rules are distinct from scientific hypotheses. Nomenclature aims to assign a unique and stable name. It does not, in itself, account for historical injustices or colonial contexts. Yet these realities undeniably exist within society.

Scientific names therefore sit at the intersection of nomenclatural stability, the accumulation of scientific knowledge, and historical legacies. The nomenclatural system is formally neutral, but historically shaped.

Do you think nomenclature should be further adapted to incorporate these social and historical dimensions?

There is no simple solution. Science cannot be separated from its human, cultural, and political context. As a botanist specializing in plant taxonomy, my primary focus remains the description and documentation of species, which lie at the heart of my training and professional practice.

It seems important not to replace one imbalance with another. While nomenclatural mechanisms belong to the scientific community – and already allow for the modification of names deemed inappropriate – the identification of problematic situations can shift and no doubt benefit from additional perspectives.

What would a museum that embraces the ambiguity of knowledge look like?

Embracing ambiguity would mean accepting that some issues are not settled immediately or maybe ever. In botany, depending on the authority you follow a taxon can be considered one very variable species or several microspecies.

Another point of discussions for museums and cultural institutions is colonialism. There are complex questions that deserve exploration without immediately settling with a definitive conclusion by a single authority – that would be reproducing a power imbalance that infringes other people’s agency and epistemic authority.

The same applies to exhibitions: are we speaking only to an audience that already agrees with us? Or are we also interacting with people with different perspectives?

A museum that embraces ambiguity would not seek to oversimplify. Instead, it would acknowledge that knowledge is situated, historical, and sometimes incomplete.

Can you explain what you mean by the “presenter–observer” model?

We are accustomed to a model in which an expert transmits knowledge to a supposedly passive audience. Much of our educational system functions this way: we identify an authority and learn from them.

In many museums, this authoritative position is very strong. Which is not necessarily problematic, since expertise has value. But it can push other voices into the background.

A more dialogical model would allow the stories and experiences of non-experts to be included: artists, residents, farmers, or even a grandmother describing how meadows used to be managed.

In conservation work, for example, experts often speak in highly precise scientific terms. But that does not mean their perspective is more valuable than that of a local stakeholder who possesses practical memory and lived knowledge of a landscape.

The goal is not to replace scientific expertise, but to place it in conversation with other forms of knowledge.

Author: Diane Bertel

Editors: Monique Kirsch, Selma Weber