Central Siberian Botanical Garden Herbarium (NS, NSK)

Herbarium collections are the most important source of scientific information about the distribution of objects in the past and the present, which allows simulation the dynamics of objects in the future. Only the herbarium sample reliably confirms the presence of the plant organism in a specific point of space in a certain period of time. Herbarium collections and the data they hold are valuable for more traditional studies of taxonomy and systematic, but also for ecology, bioengineering, conservation, food security, and the human social and cultural elements of scientific collection. The value and universality of herbarium specimens are recognized in most countries, where national and large regional herbariums are actively developing and improving. The creation of Virtual or Digital herbarium became a modern trend, stage of the inventory and modernization of herbarium collections of the leading Botanical institutions in the world. Our aim is to provide online access to CSBG SB RAS herbarium collections as a worldwide resource for biodiversity study. Writing the long-awaited “Flora of Russia” would be greatly accelerated in the presence of network centers of Digital herbarium collections of Botanical institutions in Russia. The first herbarium at the Central Siberian Botanical Garden (CSBG SB RAS), Novosibirsk, Russia was organized in 1946. Now there are two herbarium collections in CSBG with their own acronyms and registrations in the Index Herbariorum (NSK and NS). Collection contains about 800,000 herbarium specimens of higher vascular plants, mosses, lichens and fungi sampled in Siberia, Russian Far East, Europe, Asia and America.