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Home / Institutions & Organisations / Palaeobotanical and Palaeontological Collections / Palaeobotany Collections

! First of all:
Paleobotany and Palynology, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville: Links to Other Paleobotanical Collections and Databases.

Pratt Museum of Natural History, Amherst College, Amherst, MA: Paleobotany.

Paleobotany, Museum of Paleontology, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Go to: Searchable Database of the Paleobotany Collection.

Pflanzensammlungen, Naturhistorisches Museum Basel, Switzerland (in German).

Museum of Paleontology (UCMP), University of California, Berkeley: Paleobotany Collection: Catalogs and Information. The UCMP paleobotany catalog contains information on type specimens of fossil plants, algae, and fungi. It includes over 8,000 specimens cataloged through 1986.
See also here.

Palaeobotanical collection, Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and Biodiversity, at the Humboldt University Berlin. The palaeobotanical collections of Cotta, Knappe, Mahr, Rühle von Lilienstern, Schlotheim, Schönlein.

Hungarian Natural History Museum, Department of Botany, Budapest: Palaeobotanical collection (Collectio Palaeophytologica).

The Canadian Museum of Nature Online: Earth Sciences Collections. Fossil plants, fossil fungi, fossil pollen.

Museum of Natural History, Chemnitz. Go to: Paläontologische Sammlung. Palaeobotany and petrified wood collection (in German).

The Field Museum, Chicago. Go to: Paleobotany Collection.

The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland OH. Go to: Paleobotany Collections.

Wladyslaw Szafer Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of Sciences, Cracow, Poland: Palaeobotanical Museum. See also: Staff and e-mail address.

Museum of Nature and Science, Denver: Follow a Plant Fossil.

The Paleobotanical Collection of the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. See also:
Department of Biological Sciences, The University of Alberta Museums, Edmonton, Paleobotanical Collection.

Paleobotany and Palynology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville: Paleobotany Collection Policies.

Norbert Hauschke: Die geologisch-paläontologischen Sammlungen der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg (in German). Including plant fossils described by Johann Georg Bornemann, one of the pioneers in cuticular analysis.

August Ilg, Alfred Selmeier and Madelaine Böhme: The fossil wood database (FWDS). Fossil wood from Central Europe, Triassic to the Pleistocene. Specimen chiefly from the Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und historische Geologie München, the Naturmuseum Augsburg and the private collection P. Holleis.

Illinois Digital Archives: George Langford Sr., collecting Mazon Creek nodules. In the 1920s and 1930s, George Langford, and his son, George, Jr., spent many hours collecting fossiliferous nodules from strip mines near Braidwood, Illinois.

Paläobotanische Sammlung, Institut für Spezielle Botanik, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena (Collection Schweitzer). See also:
The Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm: Schweitzer Collection.

Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany: Garten Eden in Stein (PDF file, in German). Report about the Institut für Spezielle Botanik, University of Jena palaeobotanical collection, including the private collection of H.-J. Schweitzer.

National Museums of Kenya. Tour of the Fossil Plants.

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Division of Paleobotany, Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center, University of Kansas, Lawrence: The Paleobotanical Collections Database. This database has over 77,000 entries, including permineralized and compression/impression specimens, prepared slides, teaching slides, research slides, figured negatives from published papers, and figured and duplicate peels. It housed the largest collection of Antarctic fossil plants in the world with more than 7000 specimens from throughout the Transantarctic Mountains. See also:
The History of Paleobotany at KU, and:
Bradley Kemp, The University of Kansas, Lawrence: Scientists bring expertise and fossil collection to KU.

Virginia Museum of Natural History, Martinsville, VA: Fossil Plant Collections.

Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, Norman, Oklahoma: Paleobotany and Micropaleontology. The Leonard R. Wilson Collection of Micropaleontology and Paleobotany comprises approximately 3800 samples with associated palynological preparations (ca. 50,000 microscope slides), 8000 macrofossil specimens, and comparative modern plant material.

Carmen Diéguez, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC), Madrid: The Collection of Palaeobotany of the Museum. At the moment the inventory comprises 5630 records (specimens and sets) with 560 different taxa.

Fossil plants, Muséum de Nantes. (in French). See also here.

Paleobotany Division, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven: Search the Paleobotany Collection, and History of the Paleobotany Collection.

! Erling Dorf (project continued by the Yale Peabody Museum’s Division of Paleobotany, New Haven; electronic release 1.0, Jan 11, 2006 by L.J. Hickey, L.S. Klise, and W.A. Green): The Compendium Index of North American Mesozoic and Cenozoic Type Fossil Plants (PDF files). This card catalog contains illustrations and descriptions of fossil plant species. Based on variables such as leaf shape and major venation type these cards are arranged into sets of numbered morphological categories. It presently covers fossil floras from North America, including Greenland, starting in the Triassic and extending to the Pleistocene. Over 93 references have been added in the last 20 years, and the Compendium Index has grown from 10,000 cards to approximately 20,000 cards, with 9,881 entries from 235 references dating from 1866 to 2003. Freely distributable for non-commercial purposes.
Table of contents:
README.txt---this file, containing license and general information
CI.csv, CI.xls---the data files in tab-delimited text format and Excel (.xls) format
CI.txt---an ascii file giving the database structure
CICflat_key.pdf---a flat description of the Compendium Index Categories that originally appeared in Leaf Architecture Working Group (1999)
CICthumbnails.pdf---small illustrations of the Compendium Index Categories that originally appeared in Leaf Architecture Working Group (1999)
CICdichotomous_key.pdf---a dichotomous key to the Compendium Index Categories that appears here and in Green and Hickey (in press)
age_codes.pdf---a key to the age codes used in the database
references.pdf---an alphabetical list of the publications cited in the database
CICeps.tar.gz---a gzipped tar archive with high-quality eps representing Compendium Index Cateogries 100--155. A future release will include all the images shown as thumbnails in CICthumbnails.pdf

Laboratoire de Paléobotanique et de Paléoécologie, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris: Collection de Paléobotanique (in French). See also: Collection de Paléobotanique.

Center for Systematic Biology and Evolution, The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. Go to: Fossil Plants.

The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA: Science > Systematics and Evolution > Botany > Paleobotany.
See also: E.E. Spamer and J.C. Lendemer (2000): Type specimens of fossil plants in the Paleobotany Collection, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Revisted catalogue (PDF file).

Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, PA: The paleobotany collection.

National Herbarium Pretoria (PRE), South Africa: Collections at the National Herbarium, Pretoria (PRE). Scroll down to: "Palaeobotany Herbarium". This houses a superb collection of fossil plants from over 100 localities in southern Africa. The main emphasis is on the Late Triassic Molteno Flora (200 million years ago).

Richard Stafursky, Lewes, Delaware: A World Species List (WSL), Animals, Plants and Microbes, Established April, 1994; World Species List - Plant Fossils.

Department of Palaeobotany, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm: Collection Databases. See also:
The Schweitzer Collection.

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs: Fossil Plant Collection. The collection represents the full span of geological time for which plant fossils are known and includes most major plant groups.

Kathleen B. Pigg, Arizona State University, Tempe: ASU Fossil Plant Collections.

Department of Geology and Palaeontology, Museum of Natural History, Vienna: The Palaeobotanical Collection.

! Department of Ultrastructure Research and Palynology, Institute of Botany, University of Vienna: Paldat. The database includes a detailed description of the pollen grain (shape in dry and hydrated condition, apertural details, wall-stratification and ornamentation, pollen coatings and cellular condition), images of each pollen grain (LM, SEM and TEM) and basic literature on each genus.

Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC: Fossil Plant and Algae, Fossil Plant and Algae Type Register. With search engine (gopher).

Home / Institutions & Organisations / Palaeobotanical and Palaeontological Collections / Palaeontology Collections (including Palaeobotanical Specimens)

New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Albuquerque, New Mexico, See also:
New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Web-based Paleo-database Home Page.

Tony Barnosky, Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkely: Paleontology Database Network. A link directory for promoting communication about electronic databases in palaeontology. See also here.

Pflanzensammlungen, Naturhistorisches Museum Basel, Switzerland (in German).

Museum of Paleontology (UCMP), University of California, Berkeley: Paleontology Resources, and Paleontological Collection Catalogs and Related Resources.

! The Canadian Heritage Information Network (CHIN): CHIN is a national centre of excellence that provides a visible face to Canada's heritage through the world of networked information. Go to:
Artefacts Canada, Natural Sciences. Artefacts Canada Natural Sciences is a database based on the collections information provided by contributing museums. Images are displayed when available! Go to:
Botany,
Palynology, or
Palaeontology.

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, located in Colorado, USA, west of Colorado Springs

The Senckenberg Research Institute, Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Paläobotanik, Geschichte (in German). See also:
History of Botany at Senckenberg. PDF file, by S. Dressler and G.Zizka (2005).

Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BGR), Hannover, Germany. The Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources. Recherchemöglichkeiten, vorwiegend Wissenschaftliche Originale (in German). Worth checking out:
Das Sammlungsobjekt des Monats.
See also here (PDF file).

The Hunterian Museum, University of Glasgow, Scotland: Search the Hunterian Museum Geology INCA Database. 12,000 geological specimens searchable from the database online. You can also search the HUG database (mostly uncatalogued material).

International Palaeontologial Association (I.P.A.): Directory of Fossil Collections of the World. This website provides data from museums, academic institutions and departments, curators, and other collection managers in order to create an indexed, searchable on-line database listing information about fossil collections around the world.

! Kenneth G. Johnson (Department of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum, London), Harry F. Filkorn, and Mary Stecheson: Paleontology Collections on the World Wide Web: The Missing Link. Palaeontologia Electronica Vol. 8 (2); October 2005.

Johanna Kovar-Eder, Natural History Museum Vienna: Catalogue of Palaeontological Types in Austrian Collections. A project of the Austrian Academy of Science, the Natural History Museum Vienna, and the Oesterreichische Nationalbank. The "Catalogue of Palaeontological Types in Austrian Collections" is a database that includes types as well as figured specimens and reference material kept in Austrian institutions. It contains now about 51 000 animal and plant fossils.

Rex Bing Hung Kwok, School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales: Palaeontology. Go to: Palaeontological Collections in Museums, and Exhibits of Private Palaeontological Collections.

Department of Palaeontology, Natural History Museum, London: The Former British Petroleum Microfossil Collection (in 1991 BP donated to the Natural History Museum London). The database, a record of BP’s exploration activity since the 1950s, hold details of material from over 3,500 individual well runs. The collection includes micropalaeontological assemblage slides and residues; palynological slides and residues and nannofossil slides from wells and outcrop from over 120 countries world-wide.

Natural Science Collections Alliance. The Natural Science Collections Alliance is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit association that supports natural science collections, their human resources, the institutions that house them, and their research activities for the benefit of science and society.

American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY: Division of Paleontology, Frontdoor. Search the largest fossil collection in the World (taxonomically, geocronologically, geographically, or stratigraphically). No fossil plants online up to now.

! The Paleobiolgy Database (original working group funded by NCEAS, web page maintained by John Alroy, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA). The Paleobiology Database purpose is to provide global, collection-based occurrence and taxonomic data for marine and terrestrial animals and plants of any geological age, as well as web-based software for statistical analysis of the data. You may search by the generalized table of spatiotemporal coverage, or by a list of major individual data sets that have been reposited in the database.

! Department of Paleontology, San Diego Natural History Museum: Links to accessible Paleontology Collections and Databases.

Department of Paleontology, San Diego Natural History Museum: Paleontology Collection Data Access.

The Senckenberg Research Institute, Frankfurt, Germany: SeSam. This database enables you to access information concerning the objects stored in the collection of the Senckenberg Museum.

SESAR, the Solid Earth SAmple Registry (an NSF funded project, by geosamples.org): SESAR is building a web-based digital registry for solid earth samples that will provide for the first time a way to uniquely name and identify samples on a global scale by means of the International Geo Sample Number IGSN. Establishing SESAR and the IGSN will have a wide-ranging impact on sample and data management, especially with respect to sample sharing and data integration, addressing a basic requirement for interoperability among information systems for sample-based data.

Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History: Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems DataNet. ETE DataNet is designed to make large datasets on fossil faunas and floras from continental deposits available to the global scientific community and the public via the internet. It provides a standarized format, map searchability, query functions and downloading capabilities.

F.F. Steininger and U. Jansen, Naturmuseum und Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg, Frankfurt am Main: Die paläontologischen Sammlungen Deutschlands. Palaeontological collections in Germany, sorted in alphabetical order (PDF file). In German. Excellent!

SYNTHESYS (hosted by the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm). For the first time, Europe’s globally important natural history collections and resources will be available in a coordinated way to scientists across Europe.
In the framework of the SYNTHESYS´project, the Swedish Museum of Natural History offers access to extensive and scientifically important biological and geological collections and state of the art facilities.

Whitby Museum, The Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society, UK: SCARBOROUGH & WHITBY MUSEUMS TYPE & FIGURED FOSSILS CATALOGUE, LIST OF SPECIMENS. Scroll down to "Plantae". Images of Cheirolepis setosus, Cheirolepis setosus woolleri, Clathopteris whitbiensis, Cyclopteris beani, Flabellaria? viminea, Marzaria simpsoni, Nageiopsis anglica, Nilssonia compta, Optopteris acuminata, Otozamites, Pachypteris lanceolata, Pecopteris propinqua, Pecopteris undans, Pterophyllum comptum, Sphenopteris williamsonis, Williamsonia gigas, Williamsonia himas, Zamia gigas.

Home / Institutions & Organisations / Palaeobotanical and Palaeontological Collections / Fossil Protection

! American Museum of Natural History and The Paleontology Portal, Collections Management: A Resource for Managing Fossil Collections. This site is divided into four sections (acquiring, storing, tracking, sharing), describing the main activities in managing a fossil collection.

The Association of Applied Paleontological Sciences (AAPS), River Heights, UT: The AAPS (formerly, "American Association of Paleontological Suppliers") was organized to create a professional association of commercial fossil (and mineral) collectors and preparators for the purpose of promoting ethical collecting practices and cooperative liaisons with researchers, instructors, curators and exhibit managers in the academic and museum paleontological community.

W. Douglas Boyce, Department of Mines and Energy, Geological Survey Division, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador: Fossil Protection Links.

David R. Greenwood, Environmental Science Program, Brandon University, Brandon, Manitoba, Canada: Fossil collecting etiquette.

Marguerite Holloway, Scientific American May 2002 issue: Trees of the Triassic. In the Painted Desert of Arizona, a story of how forests turned to stone and how the stones are walking away.

! The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), Peterborough, UK. The JNCC is the UK Government's wildlife adviser, undertaking national and international conservation work on behalf of the three country nature conservation agencies English Nature, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Countryside Council for Wales. Go to: Earth Heritage > Geological Conservation Review (GCR) > GCR Database, Palaeozoic Palaeobotany, Mesozoic Palaeobotany, and Tertiary Palaeobotany. The GCR sites represent the British fossil record of vascular land plants. Excellent!

Glen J. Kuban, Kuban's Paleo Place: Fossil Legislation and Ethics.

! Jere H. Lipps (2009): PaleoParks: Our paleontological heritage protected and conserved in the field worldwide. PDF file, from:
Jere H. Lipps and Bruno R.C. Granier (eds.) 2009, (e-book, hosted by Carnets): PaleoParks - The protection and conservation of fossil sites worldwide. Also available from here.

! Jere H. Lipps and Bruno R.C. Granier (eds.), 2009 (e-book, hosted by Carnets): PaleoParks - The protection and conservation of fossil sites worldwide. (HTML and PDF versions). Also available from here (scroll down for table of contents).
This volume reviews the International Paleontological Association's activities and plans, and provides examples of successful protection (six chapters) and of endangered or unprotected possible sites of importance ( four chapters). Invited contributions based on presentations given at the three PaleoParks Workshops at the International Geological Congress in Florence (2004) and Oslo (2008) and the International Paleontological Congress in Beijing (2006).

North Coast Fossil Club, Cleveland, Ohio: North Coast Fossil Club Safety Rules, and Field Trip Safety (by Glen J. Kuban).

! The Paleontology Portal (produced by the University of California Museum of Paleontology, the Paleontological Society, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, and the United States Geological Survey, with funding from the National Science Foundation). The Paleontology Portal is a website providing a central, interactive entry point to North American paleontology resources on the Internet. Go to: Collecting and Legalities. Information on where and how to collect fossils legally.

Lisa M. Pinsker, Geotimes June 2003: European Geoconservation. Now 12 parks strong, the European Geoparks Network spans Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Germany, with scenes ranging from petrified forest to coastal cliff.

Vincent L. Santucci, National Park Service, Kemmerer, WY, and Marikka Hughes, Peabody Museum of Natural History, Paleobotany Division, New Haven: Fossil Cycad National Monument: A Case of Paleontological Resource Mismanagement.

The Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC). SPNHC is an international organization devoted to the preservation, conservation and management of natural history collections. Go to:
Guidelines for the Care of Natural History Collections. This document is meant to serve as a tool for institutions and their staffs to continue to elevate the standards of managing and caring for natural history collections. It has been particularly gratifying that the review and comments have involved individuals from all of the professions associated with the use and care of natural history collections: collection managers, curators, conservators, administrators, research scientists, registrars, archivists, etc.

Division of Earth Sciences, UNESCO, Paris: International Network of Geoparks. In response to the perceived need for an international initiative for the recognition of sites and terrains specifically of earth science interest, UNESCO launched the International Network of Geoparks programme. This programme has the dual objective of enhancing the value of sites which act as key witnesses to the Earth's history whilst creating employment and promoting regional economic development. See also: World Heritage List. It focuses on the protection of cultural and natural sites of outstanding universal value. Go to: UNESCO World Heritage List. The following properties have been approved by the World Heritage Committee to be included on UNESCO´s World Heritage List.

Fred Weir, The Christian Science Monitor: Skullduggery among Russia's old bones. Disappearing fossils leave a trail of unanswered questions.

! Whirl-i-Gig (a software development firm working in the varied worlds of museums, biological research and conservation, natural history, material culture, and art history): CollectiveAccess (formerly known as OpenCollection). This is a full-featured collections management and online access application for museums, archives and digital collections. CollectiveAccess is freely available open-source software. Also worth checking out: Forum.

W.A.P. Wimbledon et al. (2000): Geosites, a IUGS initiative: science supported by conservation. PDF file, pp. 69-94. In: D. Barettino, W.A.P. Wimbledon and E. Gallego (eds.): Geological Heritage: its conservation and management. Madrid. Including a list of geosites in the UK (Appendix 1, PDF page 13).

Ewan Wolff, Montana State University Geoscience Education Web Development Team: Advances in Paleontology. Go to: Paleontology Ethics.

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