Our integrated activities span the academic subject areas of ecology, evolution, phylogenetics, systematics, taxonomy, conservation and biogeography, much of this united through the use of herbarium specimens.

Our overall goal is to understand plant diversity and to provide innovative and practical solutions assisting with its analysis and documentation.

Specimens housed in herbaria are one of the most valuable resources for contemporary plant diversity research in a changing world. Specimens provide:

• direct evidence of biodiversity in time and space.


• the evidence for plant distributions and biogeographical patterns.


• evidence for plant extinction, conservation and threat.


• the raw material for field and identification guides.


• the comparative data for discovering species and writing taxonomic accounts and monographs.


• an invaluable resource for inferring phylogeny and understanding the tree of life.