Michigan State University (MSC)

The MSU Herbarium was founded in 1863 with the donation of a large collection of plants from Michigan and the eastern U.S. Today, we remain focused on plant and fungal diversity from Michigan, but the collection is also rich in plants from Mexico and southeast Asia, and lichens from the Caribbean and the subantarctic region. With over half a million specimens, the MSU Herbarium is among the 50 largest herbaria in the United States, whereas the lichen collection, with 120,000 accessioned collections, is among the 10 largest in North America and, because of its geographical scope, of international importance.

Contacts: L. Alan Prather, alan@msu.edu
Collection Type: Preserved Specimens
Management: Live Data managed directly within data portal
Global Unique Identifier: b0178778-c5d7-11e4-b6af-00163e00498d
Digital Metadata: EML File
Collection Statistics
  • 82,106 specimen records
  • 15,517 (19%) georeferenced
  • 81,549 (99%) with images (81,737 total images)
  • 79,688 (97%) identified to species
  • 242 families
  • 1,257 genera
  • 6,659 species
  • 7,324 total taxa (including subsp. and var.)
Extra Statistics