Scope of the Collection

Founded in 1945, the collection focus has been on plants significant to plantation and indigenous forests in New Zealand.  The herbarium is increasing its specimens of amenity trees in New Zealand as part of its emphasis on trees of managed landscapes.

Eucalypts and conifers together comprise approximately 23% of the collection. Of the 3,200 conifer specimens ca. 30% are pines. There is a good coverage of cultivated species of eucalypts, with almost 2800 specimens, representing ca. 360 species.

Other plantation tree species are well represented and there are specimens of forest trees from Australia, Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu and Mexico.

There is a small collection of plant specimens from a “buried forest” site at Pureora, central North Island, where the plants were preserved in a wetland from the time of the Taupo eruption of ca. AD 130.