Herbarium

 
The Herbarium collections of Charles University are the largest and probably the most important scientific collection of the University. Under the international acronym PRC, the Herbarium collections are part of the network of herbarium institutions registered in the Index Herbariorum (https://sweetgum.nybg.org/science/ih/). In terms of both age (founded in 1775) and size, with a rough estimate of around 2.5 million specimens of vascular plants, algae, bryophytes, lichens, fungi, and seeds and fruits, the UK Herbarium Collections are one of the 25 most important herbaria in the world and one of the ten most important in the world maintained by universities. The collections also include comparative pollen and phytolith collections.

The Herbarium collections support a wide range of research activities in plant systematics, ecology, biogeography, floristics, conservation biology, palaeoecology and archaeobotany, not only at CU but also worldwide. We are committed to making our collections accessible through the JACQ Virtual Herbarium (https://www.jacq.org/#database), from which our records (dataset PRC) are submitted to GBIF (https://www.gbif.org/), the world's largest biodiversity data portal.

Read more about the history, structure and staffing of the collections here:
https://botany.natur.cuni.cz/prc/index.php