The herbarium of the University of Gdańsk – Herbarium Universitatis Gedanensis UGDA was established in 1970 on the initiative of Prof. Hanna Piotrowska, who was Head of the Plant Ecology Department of the Institute of Biology at that time. Herbarium has been collecting botanical and lichenological collections from all over the world for over fifty years, with particular emphasis on Poland, including Gdańsk Pomerania. In later years, employees of the Department of Plant Taxonomy and Nature Conservation and the Department of Plant Ecology were responsible for the development of herbarium collections, including: Prof. Dariusz L. Szlachetko, Prof. Martin Kukwa, Prof. Małgorzata Latałowa, Assoc. Prof. Krzysztof Banaś and Ryszard Markowski PhD. Currently, we have over 300,000 specimens that are part of many scientific collections. The most numerous is the collection of herbarium sheets of vascular plants, lichens and bryophytes. We also have a rich collection of orchids specimens, including a collection of spirit material with preserved flowers of plants from this group, as well as numerous illustrations and microscope slides. The UGDA Herbarium also includes collections of seeds of protected and endangered species from Gdańsk Pomerania, a carpological and palynological reference collection and a collection of nucleic acid (DNA) isolates. Particularly noteworthy is the collection of living plants, i.e. tropical and neotropical orchids and the collection of carnivorous plants, which are part of the National Collection of the genus Nepenthes and the National Collection of the genus Heliamphora.
Initially, the herbarium of the University of Gdańsk was located at Legionów St. in Gdańsk Wrzeszcz at the headquarters of the Department of Plant Taxonomy and Nature Conservation. In 2012, it was moved to the new location of the Faculty of Biology on the Baltic Campus of the University of Gdańsk. For the first time, the herbarium gained separate storage areas for the collections, equipped with sliding cabinets, a modern fire-extinguishing system, a freezer, a drying room and a laboratory for the preparation of plant material. The herbarium’s equipment was also enriched with herbarium dryers, which are an essential element of the conservation work on herbarium collections. Recently, thanks to EU funding from the Operational Programme Digital Poland (Program Operacyjny Polska Cyfrowa), the department was equipped with good quality microscope set and specialized planetary scanners, which enabled the digitization of most materials.
The materials deposited in the UGDA Herbarium come from numerous field studies and floristic studies, including foreign expeditions to the tropical areas of South America and Africa. Employees, doctoral and master’s students associated with botany at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Gdańsk contributed not only to the resources collected in the herbarium, but also took an active part in the work on the conservation and preparation of the herbarium specimens themselves in order to preserve their scientific value for future generations and to archive material documenting the state of the natural environment they examined.
In addition to natural specimens, the UGDA Herbarium also collected objects related to broadly understood botany, such as old equipment, books and maps, which can be seen at the exhibition ‘History of Botanical Collections’ at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Gdańsk. Apart from scientific work, herbarium employees also engege in educational activities by conducting classes for all age groups, thus promoting nature conservation and knowledge of native plant species.
The herbarium of the University of Gdańsk with the acronym UGDA is registered in the Index Herbariorum – an international index of scientific herbaria maintained by the New York Botanical Garden, USA. People interested in borrowing or depositing the collections are asked to contact the UGDA Herbarium Team and to read the UGDA Herbarium Regulations available in the Contact tab.
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