Herbarium

Herbarium is a collection of dried and systematically arranged plants. The word originates from Latin herba, meaning a plant. Herbaria are intended for learning and research.

Older herbarium collections are part of our cultural heritage, part of the history of botanical science in our country. In them hides the botanical memory of the country.

Old herbaria, which are housed by the Slovenian Museum of Natural History, comprise around 50,000 herbarium sheets. Among them is the oldest known herbarium in our country; it is dated back to 1696 and was edited by Janez Krstnik Flysser, a physician from Ljutomer.

Herbaria from the second half of the 18th century and the 19th century are already classical collections of separate leaves or sheets, onto which dried plants are customarily glued. They are equipped with labels on which at least the Latin name of the species is written. The Slovenian Museum of Natural History holds the collections of many naturalists who collected plants on our soil. The collections of Balthasar Hacquet, Karl Zois, Franco Hladnik, Henrik Freyer, Valentin Pleml and many others are particularly valuable.

Exsiccate (dry) herbarium collections, which used to be published in several copies and had printed labels, are of special interest. The author or editor of the collection sent the sheets in packs of 100. In the making of such collections, various botanists took part. One of the first such collections of this kind was the German dried flora (Flora Germanica exsiccata), made in the period between 1830 and 1845. Comprising 2,600 sheets, few Carniolan (Slovenian) botanists took part in its creation, too. The Slovenian Museum of Natural History houses one of the rare complete copies of this prominent collection.