The Garden’s herbarium houses our pressed plants, including specimens relating to our scientific research.
An herbarium is a collection of preserved plant specimens that acts as a permanent record of that species.
Herbarium collections provide a vital resource for researchers. We use them in taxonomic research to compare different species. We can find out about past distributions of plants by looking at where specimens came from. We can also extract the DNA from these plant specimens for use in our DNA barcoding and conservation research.
Our herbarium at the National Botanic Garden of Wales contains the plant specimens collected as part of our research and seed banking. It also houses the James Cosmo Melvill herbarium of British plants which was kindly donated to the Garden by Harrow School.