About Cambridge University Herbarium

Cambridge University Herbarium is part of the Department of Plant Sciences, and is housed in the Sainsbury Laboratory on Bateman Street, adjacent to the Cambridge University Botanic Garden.

With specimens dating from at least 1703, the University Herbarium houses an important collection of over 1.1 million pressed, dried and mounted plants. Specimens from around the world have been added to the collection as a result of purchases, gifts, exchanges and benefactions. The British collection is particularly comprehensive, and most new specimens added to the Herbarium in recent decades have been incorporated into this collection.

The University Herbarium holds several historically important collections, including most of the plant specimens gathered by Charles Darwin on the voyage of HMS Beagle, and the herbarium of John Lindley, Secretary of the Horticultural Society of London (later to become the Royal Horticultural Society), which contains many thousands of plants new to Western science at the time of their collection, especially those from the Americas, Asia and Australia. The Herbarium Library (part of the Library of the Department of Plant Sciences) also holds a unique collection of taxonomic books and floras.

Visiting the Cambridge University Herbarium

The University Herbarium is open to visitors and researchers by prior arrangement only, and via occasional open days and behind-the-scenes visits. Please contact us via email (see Contact Us page) to arrange a visit and follow us on X @CUHerb for updates.