United States National Herbarium

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]

References
  1. "Overview of US Herbarium". Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
  2. "The US National Herbarium" (PDF). US Government Printing Office. Retrieved 21 September 2013.
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