Herbarium Collection

Founded in 1897, Herbarium RNG holds specimens of flowering plants, conifers, cycads, ferns, lycophytes and non-vascular plants, especially from Europe, the Mediterranean, temperate South America and the UK, and contains around 400,000 of these today.

The herbarium collections provide both research material and an inspirational resource for teaching and learning, as part of the University’s School of Biological Sciences.

The herbarium not only puts Reading students directly in touch with ongoing research into the biodiversity of the planet; it also receives visitors and requests for identification help from all over the world.

Find out more about the Herbarium collection. Learn about how you can visit and use our collections, or discover the many collections held across the University.