University of Wisconsin Herbarium
Botany Department
University of Wisconsin
132 Birge Hall, 430 Lincoln Drive
Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1381
United States
Ken Cameron
Email: kmcameron@wisc.edu
Mark Wetter
Tel: (608) 262-5109
Email: mawetter@wisc.edu
The Wisconsin State Herbarium, formerly known as the University of Wisconsin-Madison Herbarium, was founded in 1849, and is a large scientific collection of pressed and classified plants, algae, lichens, and fungi. It also preserves notes, illustrations, and other material about plants, and it maintains its own sizable Herbarium Library and Herbarium Map Collection. In addition, WIS curates the voucher specimens from the US Forest Service’s wood collection, the world’s largest xylarium, which is housed on the university campus.
The herbarium collection of more than 1.1 million specimens is of regional, national, and international importance. Approximately 25% of its vascular plant specimens are from Wisconsin, all of which have been databased and are searchable online. In addition, most of the world's floras are well represented, and the holdings from certain areas such as the Upper Midwest, eastern North America, western Mexico, and the Arctic (primarily lichens) are widely recognized as resources of global significance.
Materials of Special Interest
- Vascular Plants: 790,000 specimens
- Lichens: 150,000 specimens
- Parastic Fungi: 100,000 specimens
- Bryophytes: 58,000 specimens