United_States_National_Herbarium

United States National Herbarium

United States National Herbarium

National herbarium (Washington, D.C)

The United States National Herbarium is a collection of five million preserved plant specimens housed in the Department of Botany at the National Museum of Natural History, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution. It represents about 8% of the plant collection resources of the United States and is one of the ten largest herbaria in the world.[1]

The herbarium was founded in 1848, when the first collections were accessioned from the United States Exploring Expedition, when botanists pressed approximately 50,000 specimens, representing 10,000 species of plants.[2] The Index Herbariorum code assigned to this herbarium is US[3] and this abbreviation is used when citing housed specimens.

References

  1. [1]
    "Overview of US Herbarium". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  2. [2]
    "The US National Herbarium" (PDF). US Government Printing Office. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  3. [3]
    "Index Herbariorum". Steere Herbarium, New York Botanical Garden. Retrieved 25 November 2021.
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