DOI: 10.15468/cpnhcc
title: Moscow University Herbarium (MW)

description: Moscow University Herbarium (MW) is the second largest herbarium in Russia after the Komarov Institute. Being available at https://plant.depo.msu.ru/, it is almost completely imaged either at 300 dpi for regular collections or at 600 dpi for type specimens. After 2020, all collections are imaged at 520 dpi. The herbarium is focused on the flora of temperate Eurasia with an emphasis on the flora of Russia. As of 12 December 2025, physical collections of MW Herbarium include 1,157,810 specimens (incl. 5,155 type specimens) representing 37,158 species of vascular plants and bryophytes. Currently, MW holds the 57th place in the world's ranking (Thiers, 2025). Moscow University Herbarium preserve some important historical collections by G.F. Hoffmann, J.F. Ehrhart, C.B. Trinius, J.R. and J.G.A. Forsters, and their correspondents.The Moscow University Herbarium added a millionth specimen to the collections in June 2016. An average annual growth of the collections is ca. 15,000-20,000 specimens, with exceptional 22,013 specimens added to the herbarium in 2016. In 2025, we added 18,367 new accessions. Since 2005, major accessions originated from Eastern Europe, Siberia and Russian Far East, the Caucasus, the Crimea, and South Asia (vascular plants); Taimyr, Russian Far East, and North Caucasus (bryophytes).The Moscow University Herbarium has gained budget for the digitisation of the collections within the Program of the National Depository Bank of Live Systems (Moscow Digital Herbarium Initiative), and ca. 1,080,734 specimens were imaged since May 2015. All records are published at Moscow Digital Herbarium (https://plant.depo.msu.ru/), including JPG images and metadata required for indexing.Specimen imaging in MW Herbarium was completed at the end of 2018. All scans were published online with key metadata (i.e., “filed as” name, currently accepted name, one of 60 geographic area codes, country of origin, collection date, and primary collector. However, it was just the beginning of our long-term goal to digitize complete label data and georeference the collection, which was our most challenging task. The number of georeferenced specimens with fully captured labels is constantly growing. As of December 2025, labels of 593,743 specimens are fully captured and 840,967 specimens are precisely georeferenced. MW Herbarium is the 5th largest supplier of precise geodata based upon herbarium specimens after MO, L, NY, and LD.At the moment, we have three main sources of geodata in the database including: (1) coordinates available from labels; (2) manual georeferences made by operators; (3) automatic georeferences based upon the ISTRA algorithm; and also (4) specimens which do not have sufficient information to generate georeferenced data. The current phase and bulk of georeferencing for the MW Herbarium has been completed. Further intensive georeferencing is going to be highly time-consuming, since collections with traceable exact localities are already done. Expansion of geodata will be mostly based upon new accessions with available GPS-coordinates with an average rate of new acquisitions ca. 15,000 specimens per year. Geographically, our geodata cover large areas of Temperate Eurasia with a focus on Russia, the former Soviet Union, and Mongolia, that have long been poorly represented in GBIF.Moscow Digital Herbarium Consrtium (MW, MHA, IRKU, KUZ, TUL, TULGU, KULPOL, MAG, TKM, SMR, KRSU herbaria online) is the largest Russian plant database. It is fully available in GBIF. It is the primary source for the "Distribution Atlas of the Russian Flora" (https://plant.depo.msu.ru/open/public/en/search?collection=ATLAS).The project is currently supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 21-77-20042, https://rscf.ru/en/project/21-77-20042/).