Botanical Museum Greifswald

About

The Botanical Museum Greifswald (German: Botanisches Museum Greifswald) is a scientific collection at the department of botany of the University of Greifswald. It was founded around 1850 by Julius Münter and is the largest botanical collection in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

History: A herbarium was created in the 17th century when Samuel Gustav Wilcke founded the Botanical Gardens of Greifswald. The Botanical museum was founded by Julius Münter between 1845 and 1855. Münter and his assistants Hermann Zabel and Ludwig Holtz collected botanical objects from the region of New Western Pomerania. The collections were later extended to specimens from other regions.

The collection includes naturalia such as wood samples, plant compounds, and drugs as well as artificialia such as scientific models, instruments, and wall charts. The core of the collection consists of the herbarium with roughly 300.000 specimens and the teaching collection with many botanical models. The “Herbarium Higher Plants” (GFV) documents many endangered or extinct species and serves as the central herbarium of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The holdings include 250.000 specimens of...