Darwin Centre
The Darwin Centre is a new life sciences facility at the Natural History Museum. Phase two of the building, including the landmark 8-storey cocoon, opened in September 2009.
It provides state-of-the-art conditions for storing and studying our botanical, entomological and zoological collections, as well as enabling the public to see how scientists work.
Moving the collections
The Botany Department is migrating seed plant collections from the Waterhouse Building into new collection storage areas on the 4th and 5th floors of the Darwin Centre.
This involves specialist removal staff packing, freezing (to kill any stowaway pests), transporting, unpacking and finally re-shelving some 3 million herbarium sheets and carpological specimens.
Re-ordering the collections
We are taking the opportunity of the move to merge and re-order all of the non-British collections, currently split between the European and General Herbaria. This is a mammoth and complex task and will continue for some months.
Re-ordering is being done according to the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) recommendations - the most up-to-date sequence of flowering plant families. This will enable the collections to more accurately reflect the tree of life and will help both curators and researchers working with the specimens.
Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity
The half a million British seed plant specimens are moving to the Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity, on the ground floor of the Darwin Centre.
This is a completely new unit within the Museum, bringing together much of our work on UK natural history. It will:
- have a dedicated staff and UK-specific projects
- provide facilities for visitors and specialist societies working on UK biodiversity
- house the scientific enquiries service