Algae collections

The Museum's collection of algae is one of the largest in the world, with more than a quarter of a million specimens from around the globe.

Algae specimens account for about five per cent of the Museum's botanical collections. The diatom collections are curated separately.

Strengths

The algae collections number around 400,000 specimens. The main algal groups represented here are:

• red, green and brown seaweeds
• freshwater algae including charophytes
• cyanobacteria.

The algae collections include:

• some of the earliest specimens held in the Museum, dating back to the seventeenth century
• expanding contemporary collections
• around 10,000 algal type specimens.

Major collections

The earliest algae specimens are in the Sir Hans Sloane Herbarium, the Museum's founding collection, with material dating from the early 1600s to the mid-1700s. 

Of particular note are the collections of Adam Buddle, which are incorporated here and include seaweed specimens collected from UK shores in the 1690s.

Recent important collections

In 1970 the algae collections at the Museum and the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew were amalgamated. The size of the Museum’s algae collection doubled, dramatically increasing the number of type and historically important specimens.

Recent collections are the vouchers for field research and/or published revisions and floras (such as the Seaweeds of the British Isles series).

Country of origin

The herbarium has a global coverage. The UK is particularly well represented, with a timeline of specimen data going back over 250 years.