Most herbaria are concerned primarily with wild plants - either from the local flora or collected from various parts of the world. In the RHS Herbarium the emphasis is on ornamental garden plants.
Although a relatively recent herbarium, compared with the ones at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew or Natural History Museum, the RHS Herbarium – situated at RHS Garden Wisley - is the largest herbarium dedicated to ornamental plants in the UK.
Timeline
- 1856: The original herbarium of the Royal Horticultural Society was auctioned to help relieve the Society’s debts.
- approx. 1917: Gathering of specimens for the current herbarium began, when collections began to be made from the garden at Wisley.
- 1936: Frederick Hanbury donated his European herbarium (approx. 12,000 specimens)
- 1960: Chris Brickell took charge and started to co-ordinate effort to collect and expand the herbarium.
- 1967: Diana Miller joined as Assistant Botanist and later became Keeper of the Herbarium in 1979 before retiring in September 2005.
- 1985: Building of new cupboards saw the herbarium start to grow more rapidly to its current size.
- 2002: New herbarium cupboards installed
Although the oldest specimen in the herbarium is a lavender (Lavandula x intermedia) collected in 1731, this was donated by Rev George Henslow, RHS Professor of Botany between 1880-1918, along with the rest of his herbarium. The earliest collections in the herbarium recorded from Wisley itself are of Berberis in 1917.