The history of the vascular plant collection may be traced to 1891 when Peter H. Rolfs established the Herbarium of Florida Agricultural College.

There are currently approximately 280,000 accessioned sheets of vascular plants with an excellent representation of the vascular flora of Florida, the southeastern United States coastal plain, and Haiti. The collection is rich in historical material dating back to the mid-1800s: e.g. from 1838 (Nicaragua), 1841 (the Carolinas), and 1843 (Florida).

Collection Catalog and Organization

Researchers should be aware that our collections are only partially cataloged. The University of Florida Herbarium Collections Catalog contains information on 102,939 specimen accessions (of ca. 450,000); last update: 29 July 2021. This catalog is also shared with iDigBio and GBIF. The SERNEC portal includes data from those specimens plus around 120,000 specimens with images and partial data. For an overview of our complete holdings, please consult our cabinet door lists document, a lengthy PDF. This print-out is the basis for the lists posted on each cabinet with the contents to genus and/or species level.

Search the FLAS Collections Catalog

The vascular plant collection families are delimited by a modern classification based on the Angiosperm and Pteridophyte Phylogeny groups publications. The families are arranged “phylogenetically” by a modified Dalla Torre and Harms numbering system which is based on the Engler and Prantl classification system. This system is outlined in Dalla Torre and Harms (1908) – see “References” below. The family numbering codes we use are in our own family list PDFS (alphabetical, numerical). Documents explaining the details of the arrangement are provided to users during the collection orientation.