RHS Herbarium Image Collections

Introduction to the RHS Herbarium Image Collections

The Herbarium image collection amounts to over 25,000 colour slides, and about 4,000 paintings.

During a period in the first half of the 20th century, paintings were made of plants receiving RHS Awards, either after Trials or at RHS Shows, and this historical collection is integrated into the Herbarium. Later awarded plants were photographed, initially in black and white but now in colour.

Valuable as pressed specimens are, good colour photographs of living material are extremely useful to augment specimens of cultivated plants. Images of the majority of new additions to the Herbarium are now photographed before pressing.

A programme of selection of these photographs and paintings for scanning is underway. The digitised images can then be used for various parts of the web site and the process will also to ensure their conservation. Initially plants with the Award of Garden Merit and of Standards are being chosen.

For an article on the Herbarium image collection in the RHS Science Report 2004 click here (28KB)

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