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Herbarium Virginicum Herbaria are museums of plant biodiversity that facilitate the study
of plant morphology, classification, phylogeny, distribution and
ecology. The herbarium of Virginia Commonwealth University is a collection
of nearly 17,000 specimens of dried plants, representing native and
naturalized species primarily from Virginia and the southeastern
United States. The Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden herbarium comprises
a reference collection of roughly 2,000 specimens of cultivated plants.
The collections are housed together at the Central Virginia Herbaria,
located in the Education and |
Library Complex of LGBG’s 30-acre
campus in the Lakeside area of Richmond. The VCU and LGBG curators
coordinate the basic activities of the herbaria, including specimen
acquisition, curatorial duties, loans and exchanges. Scientists throughout
the state and region use the collections. Research and educational
opportunities are available for students and volunteers, including
training in plant classification, curating natural history collections
and the basics of biodiversity-informatics. The first major initiative
of the combined herbaria is the creation of a Web-based virtual herbarium,
which includes digitizing the entire collection and creating a database.
