Collections The McGregor Herbarium houses approximately 400,000 specimens accumulated by Botany staff during the past 150 years.
The majority of these comprise exsiccatae, seed, boxed, and fluid-preserved vascular plant specimens. The herbarium also houses smaller holdings of bryophytes and fungi, and a rapidly growing lichen collection. Additional resources in the herbarium include a library of 1,400 books and 14,000 scientific articles, and a collection of more than 50,000 photographic slides and digital images.
The botany collections can be searched here and lichens collections can be searched here.
- We house the largest single collection of plants from the grassland biome of central North America; an estimated 65% of the specimens are from that region. Other important holdings in the collection reflect specific taxonomic and geographic interests of current and former staff.
- Label data for essentially all of our lichen specimens and roughly 2/3 of our vascular plants specimens have been databased and are accessible digitally. Digital records for lichens represent 440 genera and 1,320 species; for vascular plants they represent 1,940 genera and 9,030 species.
- Though our collections come primarily from North America, KANU houses lichen and vascular plant specimens from 18 and 62 countries, respectively.
- We house the largest collections of lichens and vascular plants from Kansas—nearly 7,700 and 135,000 specimens, respectively.
- Since 1970, KANU has accessioned an average of 2,500 specimens annually.
Our collection ranks in the top 5% of U.S. herbaria in the number of accessioned specimens. Vascular plants holdings are rich in Asteraceae, Cyperaceae, Fabaceae, Juncaceae, and Poaceae.
