Bryophyte collections

The bryophyte herbarium is among the largest and most comprehensive in the world.

The collection provides a unique source of critical data for the international bryological community, supporting research on taxonomy, habitat conservation and environmental monitoring over historical periods of time.

Specimen numbers

Geographical range

Specimens were collected from across the world, spanning the arctic, boreal-temperate, tropical, austral-temperate, and antarctic.

Temporal range

Specimens date from the late 17th century to the 21st century.

Strengths of the collection

Most of the collections were accumulated by notable bryologists in the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries.

These pioneers of bryophyte taxonomy described thousands of new taxa from every continent, and consequently, the herbarium is rich in original material.

The herbarium is also rich in specimens from pioneering early plant collectors, such as H. von Handel-Mazzetti, who collected in China; Humboldt & Bonpland in South America; GHK Thwaites in Sri Lanka and JD Hooker in Antarctica, India, and New Zealand.

Extensive recent collections of tropical and subtropical bryophytes have been made over the last 60 years, many by museum bryologists. Most significantly, these include material from Malaysia, Indonesia, the Indian subcontinent, the Seychelles and Mascarenes, New Zealand and Ascension Island.

We also hold a large and ever-growing collection of British and Irish bryophytes, with holdings ranging from historical to contemporary.

Important historical collections

Herbarium holdings range from the late 17th Century through significant landmarks in the history of bryophyte taxonomy, incorporating many of the earliest local and exotic collections and reflecting historical changes in the processes and rules of botanical nomenclature.

Worthy of note

The primary type material of some of the hundreds of new taxa described by the 19th-century German bryologist Carl Müller (Hal.) was destroyed during the Second World War, but duplicates of a significant fraction of his original material are held by the British Museum.

Notable Expedition material

Vancouver Expedition 1791-1795 (collections by Archibald Menzies)

Flinders Expedition, HMS Investigator, 1801 (collections by Robert Brown)

Parry’s Arctic Voyages 1819-1820 (various collectors)

Challenger Expedition 1872-1876 (collector ‘Mr Moseley’)

Antarctic Voyage of HM Discovery Ships Erebus and Terror in 1839-1843 (collections by J.D. Hooker)

German Transit of Venus Expedition, SMS Gazelle, 1874 (incomplete range of collections by ‘Dr Naumann’)

Learn more about the collections