Australia's Virtual Herbarium

Australia's Virtual Herbarium provides immediate access to the plant and fungi specimen data held in Australian herbaria

Australia's major state and territory herbaria house over six million plant algae and fungi specimens. The collecting information stored with these specimens provides the most complete picture of the distribution of Australia's flora to date. Australia's Virtual Herbarium (AVH) is an online resource that provides immediate access to this invaluable information.

When the AVH databasing project began in 2001 only a small proportion of the botanical specimens held by the major Australian herbaria had been databased. Now over 80 per cent of the specimens housed in Australian herbaria are available online. Specimen data can be viewed on-screen as a map or in a table and can be downloaded in a number of formats.

The majority of the Australian plant algae and fungi collections at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (MEL) have been databased and MEL contributes approximately 850000 specimen records to AVH. New records are added daily as curation staff database the thousands of specimens received by the Herbarium each year.