Besides the collections of living plants, there is also a herbarium in the Botanical Garden of P. J. Šafárik University. Herbarium is a collection of specially dried plants – herbarium specimens. These are unique evidence of the occurrence of a certain plant species in a certain place and at a certain time. They enable various scientific studies and provide e.g. also information for the practice of nature protection – information on the dynamics of rare plant populations, the spread of invasive species, etc.
The herbarium of the Botanic Garden is a part of international network of public herbaria, it has the code KO in the international database.
The herbarium contains approx. 60,000 of specimens, the data on 35,000 of them are recorded in an electronic database. The digitization of individual herbarium specimens is currently underway, which will improve the availability of information for the general botanical and nature conservation public.
The herbarium collection contains specimens of mosses, fungi, lichens, but especially higher plants. They come mainly from the Carpathian and Pannonian region, from Europe, but, in accordance with the expeditions of individual collectors, we also have specimens from Antarctica and Asia. The oldest specimens date from 1851.
Requests for scientific study of specimens and further information on herbarium collection and availability of digitized specimens should be addressed to the herbarium curator: RNDr. Lenka Mártonfiová, PhD. (lenka.martonfiova@upjs.sk).
International index of herbaria: Index Herbariorum – The William & Lynda Steere Herbarium (nybg.org).
