University of Florida Herbarium (FLAS)

The University of Florida Herbarium (FLAS) in the Florida Museum of Natural History contains approximately 500,000 specimens of vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens, fungi, and wood, with the earliest specimens dating to the early to mid-1800s. The FLAS acronym is the standard international abbreviation for the Herbarium, derived from its early association with the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station. The herbarium was established in 1891 by Peter H. Rolfs of Florida Agricultural College in Lake City, and later moved to the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1906. The vascular plant collection (ca. 320,000 specimens) has an excellent representation of the USA (esp. Florida and the southeastern USA), the West Indies (esp. Hispaniola), and other Neotropical areas. The bryophyte collection (ca. 70,000 specimens) and lichen collection (ca. 16,000 specimens) are worldwide in scope (esp. Florida and Neotropical areas such as Costa Rica, Venezuela, and Brazil). The wood collection (ca. 16,000 specimens) is worldwide in scope (esp. tropical woods). The algal collection includes ca. 3,500 specimens, mainly from Florida. The Fungal Herbarium contains ca. 55,000 specimens (primarily non-lichenized fungi and slime molds). This digital dataset serves the vascular plant collection, of which ca. 2/3 are digitized, including ca. 500 type specimens (holo-, lecto-, iso-, neo-, or epi-types). The herbarium's digitization effort has been supported by several institutions, including the Florida Museum of Natural History, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, National Science Foundation, United States Department of Agriculture (Hatch Project FLAS-HRB-04170), UF Libraries Digital Library Center, Florida Center for Library Automation, Florida Museum Associates, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.