Collections

The UGDA-Plants Collection of Vascular Plants is the largest collection in the Herbarium of the University of Gdańsk, it includes approximately 300,000 specimens. It primarily collects the flora of northern Poland and is the result of the work of a team of botanists from Gdańsk who conduct numerous floristic and phytosociological research in this region. Particularly valuable are the collections from the initial period of the herbarium’s activity, i.e. Prof. Hanna Piotrowska’s collection from the area of Woliński and Słowiński National Park. They play an important role in understanding the flora and plant communities of these valuable coastal areas. The flora of Pomerania preserved in herbarium materials contributed to the development of the regional red list and the Red Data Book of Gdańsk Pomerania. Here, in Herbarium Collections, were deposited herbarium materials of Ryszard Markowski Ph.D., Michał Buliński Ph.D., Jadwiga Stasiak Ph.D., and Renata Afranowicz-Cieślak Ph.D. from Northern Poland. Many of the materials from the UGDA Herbarium constituted documentation in the development of the Distribution Atlas of Vascular Plants in Poland edited by Prof. A. Zając and Prof. M. Zając from the Jagiellonian University.

In the collection of vascular plants of the Herbarium Universitatis Gedanensis you can find about 500 pre-war sheets by German botanists and pharmacists. These are largely specimens from the areas of then West Prussia (now around Gdańsk, Elbląg, Wejherowo, Lębork, Kartuzy and Kościerzyna) and East Prussia (around Iława and Mława) collected, among others, by members of the Prussian Botanical Society, including by its founders – Robert Caspary and Julius von Klinggraeff.

Moreover, in cooperation with the Gołubieński Botanical Garden and the Wirty Arboretum at the Kaliska Forest District, the UGDA Herbarium created the first extensive collection of leafless shoots of trees and shrubs in Pomerania (both native species and their cultivated varieties), constituting reference material during floristic research.

The lichen collection of the University of Gdańsk (UGDA-L) is one of the largest of this type in Poland and currently includes over 62,800 inventoried specimens of lichenized fungi, lichenicolous fungi and a small number of fungi traditionally studied by lichenologists.

The year 1975 can be considered the date of creation of the collection, as specimen number 1 in the collection comes from that year. All specimens included in the collection and indexed with a unique code are in the database, digitized and have a digital copy. About 20,000 specimens are still waiting to be included in the collection.

The core of the collection consists of specimens collected from Poland (mainly the northern part of the country, including specimens from the Białowieża Forest), but also from Scandinavia, the so-called The Baltic States, the British Isles and other regions. Specimens from other parts of the world are represented by a collection from South America (mainly Bolivia), but also Australia, Greenland, mainland North America and others. The main collectors are: M. Kukwa (over 20,000 specimens; mainly northern Poland, the Białowieża Forest and Bolivia), T. Sulma (over 11,000 specimens; mainly Pertusaria s.l., Parmeliaceae, Carpathian collections, including from the territory of present-day Ukraine), A . Kowalewska (over 9,000 specimens; mainly epiphytic specimens from northern Poland) and W. Fałtynowicz (4,000 specimens; collections mainly from northern Poland). Over 34,000 specimens were identified by Prof. Martin Kukwa. Most of the specimens were collected after 1935, with many specimens collected in the 20th century in the 1930s and 1950s by Prof. Sulma and in the 1980s by Professor Fałtynowicz. Materials from the 1990s and the 21st century were collected mainly by Prof. M. Kukwa and A. Kowalewska Ph.D..

Lichen materials from research on the Białowieża Forest conducted as part of the international project “KlimaVeg – the impact of climate change on species ranges and composition of plant communities in temperate, boreal and alpine regions” by Prof. M. Kukwa is a very valuable documentary material for climate change research.

The collection also includes approximately 1,000 specimens published in herbarium publications (including Lichenes Australasici exsiccati) and over 300 types (including 32 holotypes and 33 isotypes). For over 11,000 specimens, the composition of secondary lichen metabolites was analyzed using thin-layer chromatography. The UGDA L collection is also used for molecular research.

There is one collection of bryophytes in the Herbarium Pomeranicum collection; it contains nearly 16,000 bryophyte specimens, belonging to a total of over 300 different taxa. The UGDA-B bryophyte herbarium comes mostly from Northern Poland. The creators and main collectors are the current curator of the collection, Bartłomiej Hajek Ph.D., Prof. Maria Herbichowa and Krzysztof Gos Ph.D.. A significant part of the collection is devoted to forest and peat bog species.

The resources of the Herbarium of the University of Gdańsk contain a rich collection of herbarium specimens of the Orchidaceae family. It is the result of many years of taxonomic research carried out at the Department of Plant Taxonomy and Nature Conservation. The collected materials come from field trips and exchanges conducted with other scientific institutions in Poland and abroad. The deposited herbarium specimens come from all over the world, with a large proportion of tropical species. In addition, the UGDA-Orchid collection of orchids is a separate collection of herbarium materials thematically related to the collection of illustrations, spirit materials, microscopic slides, SEM and TEM documentation and an archive of literature on taxonomic studies of this group of organisms. The founder of the collection is Prof. Dariusz L. Szlachetko, who initiated and continues to develop the collection together with his colleagues, conducting intensive research on representatives of the Orchidaceae family. The result of these activities is the discovery and description of many species new to science, as well as the creation of numerous taxonomic studies. These include revisions and monographs of selected groups and flora of tropical areas, e.g. Colombia, Guatemala, Central and Eastern Africa, and Guyana. Some of the specimens deposited in the UGDA are nomenclature types that are valuable for science.

The UGDA-Figures collection is an archive of over 20,000 original drawings and reprints created for publication purposes. It was created based on herbarium materials from the UGDA herbarium resources, but also during research into many herbaria around the world, including: Missouri Botanical Garden, Smithsonian Institution Herbarium, and Harvard University Herbaria.

The Herbarium of the University of Gdańsk has a collection of approximately 10,000 specimens preserved in preservative liquids documenting the morphological features of specimens and an extensive collection of microscopic slides of gynostemia of species from the Orchidaceae family. The creation of this collection was initiated by Prof. Dariusz Szlachetko over 40 years of research on the taxonomy of orchids carried out at the University of Gdańsk.

Preserving plant parts in fixing fluids, most often flowers, is intended to preserve their taxonomic features, which may be lost if the material is pressed and dried before placing it in the herbarium. The preservative liquid, thanks to its components, preserves the plant material, saving its smallest details, such as thickenings or hair on the surface of the epidermis. Thanks to this, specimens fixed in liquid can be used for very detailed studies, for example those that analyze micromorphology based on scanning microscopy.

The most frequently used plant preservation fluids in our unit are Kew Mixture and Copenhagen Mixture. The content of ethyl alcohol and formaldehyde is responsible for fixing the preparation and protecting the material against microorganisms. In the case of Copenhagen Mixture, formaldehyde is not used due to its harmful properties. Glycerol as a component of both mixtures is intended to maintain the elasticity of the samples.

Due to the fact that some research procedures require fresh material and obtaining samples from the natural environment is often impossible, cultivation of live specimens may be the only way to collect the necessary material.
Many specimens collected in living collections represent rare or endangered species. Their extraction from the natural environment and removal from the place of occurrence are therefore very limited. Most of the specimens in our collection come from commercial farms authorized for cultivation and sale, or from other scientific or amateur collections.The greenhouse of the Faculty of Biology of the University of Gdańsk is divided into several blocks, which are adapted in terms of temperature and other parameters to the needs of plants from different environments. Factors such as irrigation, maintaining temperature, air humidity and providing plants with the appropriate amount of light are automated, thanks to a specialized climate management system.

The greenhouse cultures of the Herbarium Universitatis Gedanensies have two main collections:

• tropical orchid plants (UGDA-G), derived mainly from South America and Asia.
• insectivorous plants – Collection of CarnivorousPlants (UGDA-CP) – which includes the National Collection of the genus Nepenthes and the National Collection of the genus HeliamphorA

The Herbarium collections include two collections belonging to the Laboratory of Paleoecology and Archaeobotany (Department of Plant Ecology) of the Faculty of Biology of the University of Gdańsk. The creation and collection of specimens was initiated by Prof. Małgorzata Latałowa. The further development, cataloging and expansion of both collections is supervised by Assoc. Prof. Monika Badura and Ewa Janik, M.Sc.

The Carpological Reference Collection of CRefColl-UGDA is a collection of comparative materials, seeds, fruits and their elements, expanded to include wood and other vegetative plant elements. Currently, the Collection includes over 3,900 specimens of 1,880 species of both native and foreign flora. Specimens from outside Poland represent, among others, the flora of Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Spain, Finland, Iceland, Germany and Italy. Most of the collections come from botanical gardens, including: from Kew Royal Botanical Gardens (London, Great Britain), Botanical Garden of the Jagiellonian University (Kraków), Botanical Garden of the University of Warsaw, Orto Botanico Università di Siena (Sienna, Italy), Stavanger Botanic Garden (Stavanger, Norway), Garden of Medicinal Plants of the Medicinal University of Gdańsk or Gołubieński Botanical Garden. Additionally, specimens were obtained from scientific institutes such as the Institute of Plant Breeding and Acclimatization, Institut méditerranéen d’écologie et de paléoécologie (Marseille, France). The collection also includes materials collected from natural sites, e.g. the collection of Prof. M. Latałowa (Wolin Island and the Tatra Mountains), Jean-Marie Dupont (Pyrenees), Prof. K. Tobolski (Poland, Germany, Scandinavia), Prof. Piotrowska (Polish coast) or Z. Radwańska-Paryska Ph.D. (Tatra Mountains). The collections represent most of the national flora. Particularly numerous samples in the collection belong to the following families: Poaceae (grasses), Cyperaceae (sedges), Asteraceae (Compositae) and Apiaceae (umbellifers). The purpose of collecting seeds and fruits as part of the contemporary collection is to provide reference material for the analysis of fossil remains from paleoecological and archaeobotanical sites.

The Pollen Reference Slide Collection of PRefSColl-UGDA is an extensive collection of 1,541 specimens representing 761 species. These are both vascular and cryptogam plants. They constitute documentary material based on palynological research covering many archaeobotanical and paleoecological sites from Europe, Africa and Asia. This type of deposited materials are used in both modern and archaeological research on traces of fossil plants. This type of fossil data is used, among others, for chronological verification of archaeological sites.