Herbarium

The Botanical Institute of Barcelona (IBB) herbarium—internationally known with the BC code—specializes in western Mediterranean flora. The herbarium is the most important collection of plants in Catalonia, and the third largest in the Iberian Peninsula. Its collection, with about 800,000 specimens, was a key reference for the Flora dels Països Catalans, Flora iberica and other botanical studies on western Mediterranean floras.

The core of the general herbarium consists of the materials initially collected by Manuel Llenas (in 1907 and 1909), by Sennen (yield up in 1909) and by Pius Font i Quer, thanks to the collection he donated in 1916 when he incorporated in the Natural Sciences Museum. It was until years later that the herbarium began to enlarge exponentially, thanks to the materials collected by Font i Quer and his desire to incorporate the main herbaria of Catalonia.

Currently, the herbarium BC is the destination of voucher sheets used in scientific research carried out by the IBB. It is, therefore, a continuously growing collection that also incorporates donations or exchange materials with other herbaria.

A brief description of the collections preserved in the herbarium can be found in the collections section. The herbarium sections of use and on-line queries enlist the different ways to consult herbarium’s samples. Lastly, the donation section explains procurement policies and the means to donate specimens.