Welcome to the Science Collections

Our collections reflect our mission of engaging in science-based plant conservation. Here, you can search our Science Collections database and view the collections we use to develop our understanding of regional and global plant diversity as documented in the Nancy Poole Rich Herbarium; discover the diversity within species and populations vouchered by our DNA Repository; and see how we preserve naturally occurring diversity in our Dixon National Tallgrass Prairie Seed Bank. Each of our collections is online and fully searchable.

Our Science Collections are physical objects, such as herbarium sheets and vials of DNA, as well as the searchable database that contains vital information about each object. Each of our three collections is curated by a Garden scientist whose role is to research, document, preserve, and manage both the physical objects in the collection as well as the digital data associated with each. In addition, we have a conservation information manager who oversees the inner workings of the database and creates the queries that allow the data to be searchable.

Learn more about each collection by clicking the related tab at the top of this page.

The Chicago Botanic Garden also has extensive living plant collections that are accessible to the public online and through the Garden app, GardenGuide.

General inquiries regarding the Science Collections database may be directed to the conservation information manager, Bianca Rosenbaum.

All life depends upon plants. The world’s plants are depending upon us.