Herbarium BG

The material documents the flora both geographically and in time and is an important environmental databank. The plants are accessible to researchers worldwide and an extensive loan activity for taxonomic and floristic research takes place continually.

 

VASCULAR PLANTS HERBARIUM

Responsible curator: Professor Dagfinn Moe

The vascular plant herbarium is divided into a Scandinavian Herbarium of c. 400 000 herbarium sheets and an Extra Scandinavian Herbarium – ”The General Herbarium” of c. 200 000 sheets. In the Scandinavian Herbarium the collections from West Norway, collected by the important collectors T. Lillefosse and J. Naustdal, are dominant. A larger collection from mountain regions in South Norway has been collected by R. Nordhagen and others. In the General Herbarium important collections from Iran and Afghanistan (Per Wendelbo and others) and of plants of the families Ulmaceae and Moraceae from tropical Middle and South America (C.C. Berg and others) are stored. Data recording of the Scandinavian Vascular Plants Herbarium is in progress, presently under the supervision of the Museum Project.

 

THE CRYPTOGRAM HERBARIA:

Responsible curator Professor: Tor Tønsberg

The cryptograms are stored in 4 collection segments; algae, mosses, lichens and fungi.

THE ALGAL HERBARIUM:

The Algal Herbarium is assumed to consist of something between 10 000 and 15 000 sheets covering all groups: green algae, brown algae, red algae, yellow algae etc. There are also some collections from plankton pulls. Important collectors are Boye (macro algae), E. Jørgensen (plankton algae) and Per Svendsen.

Data recording of the algal herbarium has not yet started.

 

THE MOSS HERBARIUM

- is believed to contain 80 000 specimens. The majority of the material is Norwegian, but the herbarium also holds important collections from Bouvet Island and Antarctica (T. Engelskjøn). Important collectors are E. Jørgensen, B.B.L. Kaalaas, J.J. Havås and T. Lillefosse. So far (as per May 2005) data of c.10 000 of the specimens have been recorded, among them the Norwegian red listed mosses. The common moss database of the recorded Norwegian mosses is searchable (see below).

 

THE LICHEN HERBARIUM:

The Lichen Herbarium contains (as per May 2005) 74 000 lichens. The majority is from Norway, but there are also larger, important collections of lichens from North America (T. Tønsberg), Bouvet Island and Antarctica (T. Engelskjøn).

Important collectors are J.J. Havaas, J.M. Norman (part of his collection) and T. Tønsberg. The entire lichen collection has been data recorded and the c. 44 000 lichens collected in Norway can be searched for in the common”Norsk Lav Database” (NLD) (see below). From this link/connection there is information on red-listed lichens in Norway. Information on lichens from Svalbard (333 pcs.) can be obtained by searching the Svalbard Lichen Database (SLD) (see below). T. Tønsberg at the lichen herbarium publishes the lichen exsiccate “Lichenes isidiosi et sorediosi crustacei exsiccati”, where up to the present 2 fascicles (50 issues) have been published. Work is being carried out on a lichen flora of Svalbard and a lichen flora of Norway for a non-scientific audience. Information on lichen literature can be found by searching the database” Recent Literature on Lichens”:”RLL/Mattick” (see below).

 

THE FUNGUS HERBARIUM:

The Fungus Herbarium contains about 16 000 specimens. The majority of the collection data have been recorded (with the exception of inter alia Myxomycetes) and are searchable in the common Norwegian Fungus Database (see below).

Jens Stordal’s macro-fungi collections constitute a significant part of the fungus collection in Bergen.

 

Databases and other resources:

 

Moss database 

Lichen database

Fungus database