Trinity College Dublin Herbarium

Herbarium specimens are fundamental to modern botany. Every specimen is a record of a plant, alga, or fungus growing in space and time. Together, our specimens and those held in herbaria worldwide allow us to build the most complete picture of global botanical diversity available. These specimens underly our system for naming and classifying plants and allow us to track changes in the world’s biota. We welcome researchers from around the world to visit and study our collections.

Our herbarium was established in 1840 but contains specimens perhaps dating back to as early as 1676. The majority of the collections were added during the curatorships of Thomas Coulter (1840-1844), William Henry Harvey (1844-1866), and John Parnell (1983-2022). The collection is growing by approximately 2000 specimens per year, and we are working to make our collections digitally available by 2030.

Click here for more information about the history and function of the herbarium.