Åbo Akademi’s collections (TUR-A)

Åbo Akademi and Turku University agreed in 2000 to transfer the Åbo Akademi plant collection (about 230 000 specimens) to the herbarium. Åbo Akademi provides the workforce and materials needed to maintain and catalogue the collection. The herbarium is responsible for storing and maintaining the collection, and making it available for research. Making such an old and valuable collection available is time-consuming, but leads to the collection appearing online in the Finnish Biodiversity Information Facility.

Despite being maintained by the herbarium, the collection still belongs to the Åbo Akademi foundation (Stiftelsen för åbo Akademi sr). The most important subcollection is Justus Montell’s collection of over 100 000 plant specimens. It is the largest private plant collection in the Nordic countries, and contains a large number of specimens from outside Finland, especially from Sweden. The fungi subcollection is currently growing the fastest.