United States National Herbarium (US-Botany)

The United States National Herbarium was founded in 1848, when the first collections were accessioned from the United States Exploring Expedition (50,000 specimens of 10,000 species). Current holdings total 5 million specimens, making this collection among the ten largest in the world representing about 8% of the plant collection resources of the United States. The herbarium is especially rich in type specimens (@110,000).
Contacts: Rusty Russell, Collections Manager, russellr@si.edu
Collection Type: Preserved Specimens
Management: Data snapshot of local collection database
Last Update: 6 May 2014
Digital Metadata: EML File
Collection Statistics
  • 244,009 specimen records
  • 48,936 (20%) georeferenced
  • 47,948 (20%) with images
  • 135,628 (56%) identified to species
  • 593 families
  • 3,367 genera
  • 23,394 species
  • 24,223 total taxa (including subsp. and var.)
Extra Statistics