Wisconsin State Herbarium

The Wisconsin State Herbarium, formerly known as the University of Wisconsin-Madison Herbarium (WIS), was founded in 1849, and is a scientific collection of pressed, dried, labeled, and classified plants and fungi. It also preserves notes, illustrations, and other material about plants, and it maintains its own valuable Herbarium Library. The collection of more than 1.2 million specimens is of regional, national, and international importance. Approximately one-fourth of its vascular plant specimens are from Wisconsin, all of which have been databased and are searchable online. In addition, most of the world's floras are well represented, and the holdings from certain areas such as the Upper Midwest, eastern North America, western Mexico, and the Arctic (primarily lichens) are widely recognized as resources of global significance.