Botany collections

The museum’s botany collections (herbarium HBBS, Herbarium Brixiensis) include about 80,000 samples of vascular plants, mosses, lichen algae and mushrooms, collected from 1600 to the present and coming mainly from the province of Brescia, from Italy, Europe and other continents.

Herbarium

The herbarium is divided into:

– historical herbariums, made between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries by botanists including Elia Zersi, Agilulfo Preda, F. Von Mueller, Angelo Ferretti Torricelli, family Montini, Nino Arietti, Valerio Giacomini;

– general herbariums of mushrooms and vascular plants, continuously incremented by the collections of researchers of scientific associations that collaborate with the museum (Centro Studi Naturalistici Bresciani, Circolo Micologico G. Carini, Associazione Botanica Bresciana) and that deal with studies of the flora of the territory of Brescia.

In addition to the biological collections is noteworthy that of wax mushrooms made in the second half of the nineteenth century by Andrea Maestri, a well-known wax modeler from Pavia.

Historic core

The historical core of the collections comes from the donation of the University of Brescia in 1949 and from the collection of Valerio Giacomini, a world-renowned botanist, dating back to 1984.

These include the classic herbariums of Richiadei, known as the first herbarium of Brescia and dating back to 1623, the herbarium of the botanical garden of Padua (1677), the herbarium Gorno (1808) containing the plant species grown in the botanical garden of Brescia, while the herbarium of Elia Zersi, mainly made in Brescia in the second half of the nineteenth century, shows the transition from the classic herbariums, without indications regarding the place of collection, to the modern ones, thanks to which it is possible to trace the place of origin of the samples.

Photo Gallery

Research activities

It deals with the conservation of plant biodiversity, with studies on the museum’s botanical collections, flora and plant communities present in the area that are conducted in collaboration with universities, research institutions, parks and scientific associations.

The laboratory of the section is equipped to identify and photograph plant samples in the study phase, providing precision instruments for biometric measurements equipped with a special software for computerization of data.

Flora and vegetation data, as well as information about the historical land use from the first half of the nineteenth century to the present, are organized in a Territorial Information System, which allows the creation of distribution models and geoecological maps for the analysis of flora and plant communities.

The results of the studies and researches are translated into dissemination tools aimed at scientific publishing, the organization of seminars, refresher courses for teachers of different orders and grades, exhibition projects and educational programs focused on nature.

Current collaborations

University of Brescia (distribution models of flora and vegetation)

Università degli Sudi dell’Insubria (geoecology of herbaceous communities and relations between epigeal, hypogeal and soil biomass)

Università degli Studi di Milano (Flora and territory teaching unit of the analysis of ecosystems program)

Osservatorio Regionale Biodiversità (Scientific coordination of the project Flora of Lombardy and Citizen Science with Parco Monte Barro)

Comunità Montana Parco Alto Garda (scientific coordination of lake Garda museum network)

Parco Sovracomunale delle cave di Buffalora e San Polo (Coordination of the park Scientific Committee)

Centro Studi Naturalistici Bresciani (flora, vegetation, plant landscape of Val Carobbio)