Find out about Herbarium, Seed Banks and Fungarium
​in botanic gardens, mueums and botanical and horticultural societies around the world

What is a Herbarium?
​

A Herbarium is a place where collections of dried plant specimens and pressed and plant material are preserved and stored for use research purposes by botanists and scientists.

Present day herbaria include more than just herbarium specimens. Herbarium specimens may also include
  • pressed and mounted plants,
  • plant parts (seeds, wood sections, pollen),
  • microscope slides,
  • plant DNA, and
  • objects made from plants - including economic botany items
Records of reference material can also include
  • drawings and paintings,
  • prints, slides and digital photographs.

A variation on a Herbarium is a Fungarium - which houses fungi specimens. 

Whether you use Herbariums or Herbaria for the plural probably depends on how much Latin you know and whether you think it's important - I've decided to use both!

Reference:
Wikipedia - Herbarium

Herbaria around the World
​

The aim of this page is to develop a list of herbariums / herbaria which are accessible by botanical artists.

Below you will find a list of some of the key collections in Herbarium, Seed Banks and Fungarium in the UK and some of the USA, Europe and Australia

As the list develops and grows I'll split country data off into separate pages - which will be accessible from this page - so please make a bookmark! 

​Also listed are the names of botanical artists who regularly work from herbarium specimens. This list will grow over time.

At the end I've included a list of Virtual Herbariums - which are accessible no matter where you are located in the world.  The advantage of the virtual herbarium is they provide large scale magnified images of plant material.

PLEASE CONTACT ME with suggestions for more Herbariums and Seed Banks that are accessible to botanical artists
Banner Image: Inside the Old Herbarium Building at Kew - where lighting used to be by gas lamps!
Matthew C. Pace, assistant curator at the Steere Herbarium at The New York Botanical Garden, explains what you need to know about herbariums.
GO TO: Basic Plant Collecting and Pressing for a series of videos outlining how you too can start your very own a Herbarium!
The Herbarium Handbook
Paperback: 348 pages
Publisher: Royal Botanic Gardens Kew; Third Edition, edition (5 Sept. 2000)

This is the commonly recognised standard reference manual for how to create herbarium specimens from plant material.

BUY THIS BOOK
Herbarium Handbook 3rd Edition - from Amazon.co.uk
Picture
The Herbarium Handbook

Botanical artists working with plant material
​

Other artists working with plant material
​
Lucy T. Smith is an Australian botanical artist (and winner of the Margaret Flockton Award 2014) based in the UK. She works on commissions for the scientists at Kew Gardens and regularly draws from the plant material kept in the Herbarium.

Rachel Pedder Smith is also a botanical artist who works for Kew. You may have seen her huge Herbarium specimen painting. You can download a key to the various seed and plant material in her huge painting. She has also produced a watercolour painting of an extensive collection of beans
Both artists also produce work for commission. (This is an article about her painting Herbarium Specimen Painting at Kew Gardens in The Telegraph)

Rosemary Wise works for Oxford University Herbaria. She produces artwork for their Tropical Forest Field Guides Project.
The At L'Herbier blog is the online journal of writer and editor Sonya Patel Ellis, founder of The Herbarium Project. 
Picture
Lucy Smith showing members of the RBG Sydney Florilegium Society an example of the specimens stored in the Kew Herbarium
The Pressed Plant
by Andrea DiNoto and David Winter 
Hardcover: 160 pages
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (October 18, 1999)

​This is a book which looks at how you can create artwork by pressing and preserving plant material

BUY THIS BOOK
The Pressed Plant from Amazon.co.uk
The Pressed Plant from Amazon.com
The Microfleur Microwave Flower Press
​
A recommendation too good not to pass on!

This was recommended to me by somebody who did a lot of flower pressing. The main advantage is that this method apparently preserves the colour of the flowers much better. It weighs 885 g and measures 22.9 x 22.9 x 2.5 cm. There's also a book of instructions - and refill packs for the materials used for pressing.

Herbariums, Fungariums and Seed Banks - in the UK
​

Botanic Gardens in the UK - England
​

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
​
The Kew Gardens Herbarium has more than 7 million specimens collected from all over the world.  
Besides being a basis for research, the herbarium also provides the raw pressed plant material for scientific botanical illustrations.  ​The first video (below) explains the history of the Herbarium at Kew Gardens
The next video (below) explains the purpose of a Herbarium.  The Kew Herbarium concentrates on the floristics of non-temperate parts of the world, British and world non-lichenized fungi, grasses and orchids

Herbarium Mounting Techniques

Display of different Mounting Techniques in the Herbarium at Kew Gardens
Display of different Mounting Techniques in the Herbarium at Kew Gardens
Picture
Mounting specimens for storage in the Kew Herbarium from parcels received from collectors in the field. Newspaper is a readily available material world which helps to dry a plant specimen when it goes into the plant press in the field.
This is a video made 
Filmed in the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, this video provides an introduction and practical guide to the art of mounting pressed, dried plant specimens for scientific study.

Storage of Seeds and Fungi
​

The Millennium Seed Bank Library at Wakehurst Place in Sussex ("Kew in the country") stores material on seeds, plant physiology, seed storage and seed germination. The work of this seed back involves collboration with various Botanic Gardens all over the world.
The Fungarium at Kew was founded in 1879 provides access to an estimated 1.25 million specimens of dried fungi
The video below explains how Kew produces Seed Guides for different species in different parts of the world using the informstion from specimens housed in the Kew Herbarium.

Botanic Gardens in the UK - Scotland
​

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh

Herbarium in UK Universities
​

Oxford University
Cambridge University
  • Cambridge University Herbarium - houses over 1 million pressed, dried and mounted plants. These date back to 1703. Access is available for those who have a research purpose.  The Herbarium also makes special collections available online. These are Darwin's Beagle Plants - the photographic records online appear to be excellent.

Herbaria of Botanical and Horticultural Societies in the UK
​

The Linnean Society
  • The Linnean Herbarium - kept by the Linnean Society - has c. 14,300 specimens of which 4,000+ specimens are type specimens for Linnaean names
  • Herbaria United is a special project of the Botanical Collection Managers Group (BCMG), a specialist group of the Linnean Society of London. The aim is to provide one bookmark for access to all the collections which are available online
Royal Horticultural Society (Ornamental Plants)

Herbarium in UK Museums
​

Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum concentrates on the flora of Europe (including the UK), Central and North America, together with British and world lichenized fungi, algae, mosses and liverworts.  

The Natural History Museum has a range of botanical collections in their Herbarium.  ​These include:

Herbarium in Europe
​

Germany
​

 Berlin - Herbarium of the Botanical Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem 
  • Founded in 1819, this houses 3.6 million dried and preserved plants and is the largest herbarium in Germany. 

Netherlands
​

The National Herbarium of the Netherlands (NHN)
  • This is the Department of Botany of Naturalis Biodiversity Center. The botanical collections of Naturalis consist of the herbaria from Leiden, Utrecht, and Wageningen universities. The focal areas are Southeast Asia, tropical America, tropical Africa and the Netherlands.

Scandinavia
​

List of Nordic Herbaria 
  • in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden

The Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki 
  • c.3.3 million herbarium specimens of plants and fungi which comprise the national herbarium of Finland

Natural History Museum at the University of Oslo

Herbarium in the USA
​

Herbarium in Botanical Gardens in the USA​
​

Chicago Botanical Garden
  • The Nancy Poole Rich Herbarium - Home to nearly 20,000 specimens, but is continually growing. Includes flora of Cook County, Illinois; flora of the tallgrass prairie; plant exploration trips in Asia; and horticultural and native plants in the Garden's living collections
Denver Botanical Gardens
A time lapse video of what it takes to create new and storage meeting contemporary standards for a herbarium
​With support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the herbaria received new storage that will allow for 20 years of plant and fungal collection growth. The Sam Mitchel Herbarium of Fungi is the most active and largest macrofungal herbarium in Colorado.
New York Botanical Gardens
  • The C. V. Starr Virtual Herbarium - an electronic gateway to the collections of the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium (c. 7.3 million plant and fungi specimens). The project to digitise the collection currently comprises c. 1.3 million herbarium specimens and 225,000 high-resolution specimen images.
Barbara Thiers, Ph.D., Director of the The William and Lynda Steere Herbarium at the New York Botanical Garden, reveals the inner workings of this unique collection of over 7 million dried plant specimens.

Herbarium in Universities in the USA
​

Harvard University
  • Harvard University Herbaria - Home - The Harvard University Herbaria, with more than 5 million specimens, is one of the 10 largest Herbaria in the world in number of specimens, and along with the library, form the world's largest university owned herbarium and the 3rd largest herbaria in the USA.
  • The Glass Flowers | Harvard University Herbaria - The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants, popularly known as the Glass Flowers - commissioned in 1886 to aid in teaching and serve as the premier botany exhibit. 847 life-size models representing 780 species and varieties of plants in 164 families as well as over 3,000 models of enlarged parts.
Harvard University Herbaria
Front facade of Harvard University Herbaria building, 22 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
REFERENCE:
Glass model of a cashew twig Glass model of a twig of the Cashew, at the Harvard Museum of Natural History
Glass model of a twig of the Cashew, at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, by L & R Blaschka
Emery University, Atlanta, Georgia
  • Emory University Herbarium - home to more than 21,000 plant specimens, dating back to the late 1800s. The majority of comprise plants from the southeast USA. Some 20,000 specimens have been digitized.
University of Michigan

Herbarium and collaborating institutions in the USA
​

California
South East USA
  • SERNEC (SouthEast Regional Network of Expertise and Collections) is a consortium of 233 herbaria in 14 states in the Southeast USA - spanning 150 years of botanical data. The aim is to provide herbarium specimen images and metadata from one of the most botanically diverse regions of the earth with the goal of facilitating better research, better management planning and a more well-informed public. Contains access to digital records of State Floras

Herbarium in Australia
​

Queensland

University of Melbourne Herbarium (MELU)

Virtual Herbarium
​

UK USA
  • The C. V. Starr Virtual Herbarium - the gateway to the digitized specimens of the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium. Currently, 3 million specimen records and 2 million images are available. ​

​EUROPE
ASIA
​AUSTRALIA
  • Australian Virtual Herbarium - The AVH provides access to collections held in Australian herbaria which, between them, house over seven million plant, algae and fungi specimens.