Oxford University Herbaria

About

Most of the University's botanical collections are united as the Oxford University Herbaria, with origins in the mid-seventeenth century and the foundation of the Oxford Physic Garden. Today the herbaria comprise approximately one million specimens, of which there are at least 35,000 types. Most taxonomic groups and geographical regions are represented.

There are three principal collections:

  • Fielding-Druce Herbarium: worldwide collection, including all pre-1796 and British holdings
  • Daubeny Herbarium: former herbarium of the forestry department, and particularly strong in African woody species
  • Xylarium: wood block and microscope slide collection

Allied collections include:

  • Botanical books and manuscripts in the Sherardian Library of Plant Taxonomy
  • Botanical illustrations from the seventeenth century to the present day
  • Fossils associated with late-nineteenth century palaeobotanical teaching

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The Fielding-Druce Herbarium comprises the collections associated with the former Department of Botany. Three core collections are represented:

Historic herbaria

All herbaria collected by the Department before 1796. The principal collections are those amassed by Jacob Bobart the Elder and his son, William Sherard, Charles du Bois, Johann Jacob Dillenius, and John Sibthorp. Other collections include the book herbarium of Gregorio a Reggio, the oldest herbarium in Britain. Each of these herbaria is held as a separate collection.

Fielding Herbarium

The non-British and Irish collection, the core of which was bequeathed to the University by Henry Fielding in the 1850s. This collection covers most taxonomic groups and geographical areas. It is particularly rich in nineteenth century material from the Americas and south and southeast Asia.

Druce Herbarium

British and Irish collection, the core of which was bequeathed to the University by George Claridge Druce in 1932. This collection covers all taxonomic groups and is particularly rich in specimens from Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Berkshire.

The Daubeny Herbarium is the herbarium of the former Department of Forestry. The herbarium was established in 1924 by the founding director of the Imperial Forestry Institute (IFI; later the Oxford Forestry Institute), Robert Troup.

The first curator was Joseph Burtt Davy. For many years, specimens came from across the former empire and mainly from Oxford-trained forest officers. Some specimens were purchased, but many were gifts or duplicates sent from forest departments for identification. Given its history, it is particularly rich in specimens from Tropical Africa and South Africa. There are also worldwide collections from the families Ebenaceae, Meliaceae, and Fabaceae.

The xylarium is the University's wood collection, containing around 24,000 wood blocks and 13,000 microscope slides, representing 10,000 species. Approximately 5% of accessions are from gymnosperms, and the remainder from non-gymnosperms (including palms and tree ferns).

Based on geographical regions, 22% of the collection is from Malaysia, 20% from tropical Africa, and 12% from South America.

Rosemary Wise

Rosemary Wise has been associated with the Department of Biology, and formerly the Department of Plant Sciences, as botanical artist since 1965. She is also associate member of the staff of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Charlotte Georgina Trower

Charlotte Georgina Trower (1855-1928) was a gifted botanical watercolourist. Both she and her sister Alice (1853-1929) were keenly interested in plants, and in April 1907 Alice wrote to George Claridge Druce, the most prominent amateur British botanist of the early 20th century, to request help in locating plants for Charlotte to paint. Druce collaborated with Charlotte and Alice on the watercolours from 1907 and finally acquired the whole collection in 1928, which he, in turn, bequeathed to the University of Oxford in 1932.

  • Trower Main Collection: general botanical watercolours and the most significant part of the collection. There are 1817 illustrations, all but one watercolours, and each annotated with details of date and locality. Most plants are from Britain and the Channel Islands (1747) and 47 are from the island of Ireland. Approximately 1400 taxa are represented, although biased towards sedges, daisies, and beans.
  • Trower Bramble Collection: 38 watercolours and black ink drawings of British representatives of the genus Rubus, each annotated with scientific name, collection location, and date.
Research

Our integrated activities span the academic subject areas of ecology, evolution, phylogenetics, systematics, taxonomy, conservation, and biogeography. The overall goal is to understand plant diversity and to provide innovative and practical solutions assisting with its analysis and documentation.

Specimens housed in herbaria are one of the most valuable resources for contemporary plant diversity research in a changing world, providing direct evidence of biodiversity in time and space, of distributions and biogeographical patterns, and of plant extinction, conservation, and threat.

Examples of research include:

  • Revisions and monography: Including a long history dating back to Robert Morison's monograph of Umbelliferae in the 17th century.
  • Phylogenetics: Plus related areas including biogeography, phylogeny reconstruction, diversification, homology, parallelism, and phylogenetic methods.
  • Species discovery: Including showing that on average there is a lag period of 35 years between collection and description of new species and that more than 50% of the world's natural history collections may not have a correct name.
  • BRAHMS (Botanical Research and Herbarium Management System): Providing curation and research support to herbaria, botanic gardens, seed banks, and more. Used in about 80 countries, including the National Herbarium of the Netherlands and the Millennium Seed Bank.
  • Rapid Botanic Survey: used for mapping, prioritising, and conserving plant species, and for measuring bioquality ‘temperature’: showing the degree to which a sample is a biodiversity hotspot.
  • Bioquality, stars, and botanical hotspots: 'Bioquality' emphasises the global rarity of species in a community, and herbaria make up one part of their assessment. These have been used to guide land use planning and conservation strategies all over the world.
  • Plant ecology, biogeography, management, and use: Forest management needs to integrate conservation with sustainable use.
  • Field guides: Characters that could allow us to distinguish plants in the field or herbarium specimens are often poorly documented. Many of these incompletely researched features are likely to influence ecological function.
Visits and enquiries

Visitors are welcome to use the botanical collections within the Department of Biology by appointment. The collections are usually open from 9:00–17:00 Monday to Thursday, when the University is open. However, it may be necessary to restrict access to the collections at short notice.

Contacts

Appointments for the Herbaria or enquiries about specific collections can be made by contacting Serena Marner (serena.marner@biology.ox.ac.uk) or the curator (stephen.harris@biology.ox.ac.uk).

To visit the rare book collection, please contact Sophie Wilcox (sophie.wilcox@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).

The Oxford University Herbaria are located at the Department of Biology’s South Parks Road site. For location details, see the contact us page.