The United States National Herbarium is a collection of five million preserved plant specimens housed in the Department of

Botany Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

at the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. With 4.4 ...

, which is part of the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

. It represents about 8% of the plant collection resources of the United States and is one of the ten largest herbaria in the world. The

herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant biological specimen, specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sh ...

was founded in 1848, when the first collections were accessioned from the

United States Exploring Expedition The United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842 was an exploring and surveying expedition of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding lands conducted by the United States. The original appointed commanding officer was Commodore Thomas ap Catesby ...

, when botanists pressed approximately 50,000 specimens, representing 10,000 species of plants. The ''

Index Herbariorum The ''Index Herbariorum'' provides a global directory of herbaria (singular, herbarium; plural, herbaria) and their associated staff. This searchable online index allows scientists rapid access to data related to 3,400 locations where a total of ...

'' code assigned to this herbarium is US and this abbreviation is used when citing housed specimens.

References

External links

{{Authority control Herbaria in the United States Smithsonian Institution