Other Paleobotanical Collections and Databases

This is not an exhaustive list of all paleobotanical collections and/or databases. If you would like your site to be listed, please send your web address to Hongshan Wang.

The Cuticle Database is an image collection of plant cuticles prepared from vouchered herbarium specimens. The site was developed as a reference tool to promote study of plant cuticle characters. Its intention is to facilitate systematic studies of living and fossil plants and to allow recognition of ecological variation.

The Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory, located at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, Maryland’s State Museum of Archaeology, has a webpage and database devoted to the climate-induced environmental changes that have occurred in the Chesapeake Bay region over the last 20,000 years. This project uses botanical data available from Maryland archaeological evidence to track how plant communities have evolved and changed over this time period. Working with lab staff, archaeobotanist Justine McKnight and Dr. Martin Gallivan, archaeologist and professor of Anthropology at the College of William and Mary, created a database of microscopic pollen, phytoliths, seeds, nuts, and other charred plant remains from 90 archaeological sites spanning 12,000 years of Maryland history. The new webpage has a searchable online database of paleobotanical data from Maryland archaeological sites, descriptions of the 90 sites and a summary of environmental change in a narrative form on the JPPM webpage. This research tool will be of great use to scholars trying to develop a context for interpreting the plant remains found on newly-excavated archaeological sites, and will also be invaluable to researchers interested in environmental changes.

The Division of Paleobotany, Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center, University of Kansas. The Collection Database has over 96,000 entries and encompasses all aspects of the paleobotanical collections including permineralized specimens, compression/impression specimens, prepared slides, teaching slides, drawings of specimens, research peels and master peels.

The Paleobotany Collection at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History includes excellent plant fossils from the Late Devonian Cleveland Shale (360 million years ago) not known anywhere else in the world and the Zimmerman Collection of 1,000 specimens of petrified wood, mostly from the western United States. The largest holding in the collection is the Hoskins Collection of 30,000 fossil plant specimens from North America and around the world.

The Paleobotanical Collection of the Department of Biological Science, the University of Alberta is the best in Canada and one of the best in the world. Along with the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, the Collection is the official repository for fossil plants in Alberta.

The paleobotany collections at Field Museum rank fourth or fifth in size nationally with about 88,000 curated specimens that range in geologic age from Precambrian to Pleistocene. The paleobotanical collections at the Field Museum are an important national and international resource for systematic and evolutionary plant biology.

The UCMP paleobotanical collection contains type specimens (ca. 12,000) and non-type specimens (ca. 350,000) of plants, algae, and fungi from localities worldwide. A searchable on-line catalog is available. Although the collections range in age from Precambrian to Recent, UCMP’s strength lies in its unique collection of western North American Tertiary paleofloras.

The collections of the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument include about 1700 species of plants and insects that have been referenced in more than 380 scientific publications over a period of 130 years. The research database allows users to search the museum collections, the taxonomic placement of the fossils, and the bibliography of references.

The Green River Paleobotany Project (GRPP) is a web-based effort to promote the identification of fossil plants and insects from the Eocene Green River Formation of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming, and to encourage collaboration between fossil collectors and enthusiasts of all kinds.

The McAbee Paleobotany Project is a web-based collaboration on the fossil plants of the Middle Eocene McAbee flora located near Cache Creek, British Columbia.

The Leonard R. Wilson Collection of Micropaleontology and Paleobotany at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History comprises approximately 3800 samples with associated palynological preparations (ca. 50,000 microscope slides), 8000 macrofossil specimens, and comparative modern plant material.

The Catalogue of Palaeontological Types in Austrian Collections is a database that includes types as well as figured specimens and reference material kept in Austrian institutions. It contains now about 54,600 animal and plant fossils.

The Paleobotany database of the Swedish Museum of Natural History includes the Rhaetian and Jurassic plant fossils from Scania, southern Sweden, housed in the Stockholm collections. The major part are from the Rhaetian and Liassic. The collections include a total of 28 105 specimens of both macrofossils and related preparations.

The Yale Peabody Museum’s paleobotany collection numbers over 150,000 specimens, with 4,200 of these type and illustrated specimens. The collection is worldwide in scope, with approximately 75% of the collection from North America and the other 25% from the Arctic, Australia, Central American, Europe, Israel, Pakistan, Lebanon, South America and the West Indies.