Botany

The Museum houses the Welsh National Herbarium, containing over 750,000 botanical specimens from across the world.

We aim to give a complete illustration of the botany of Wales, which are international in importance and quality.

The Herbarium represents over 300 years of collecting, and contributes to global research in taxonomy and climate change.

The collection includes preserved plants, fungi and algae, plus artefacts, slides, models and illustrations. Highlights include:

Examples of virtually all UK native vascular plants as well as many introduced species.
Major collections of critical British flowering plant groups including Hieracium, the National Taraxacum Collection, and a major reference collection of Rubus.
A large collection of bryophytes (mosses and liverworts). Along with the British Bryological Society UK Collection, it provides vital evidence of the past and present distributions of all 1000+ moss, liverwort and hornwort species across Britain and Ireland.
Over 1000 type specimens, the basis for scientific names.
The economic botany collection of plants used worldwide, for medicines, clothing and food.

Our taxonomic and ecological research on diatoms (microscopic algae) is important to understand how pollution and climate change affect our rivers and lakes.
Long term monitoring of surface pollen deposition in Wales provides insights into vegetation and climate change over thousands of years and permits comparison with associated sites across Europe.
Pioneer mapping of mosses in the Falkland Islands allows us to compare its flora with other areas across the Southern Hemisphere.