Question: How many herbaria specimens are in the North American collection of Canada 's largest museum ?

text: List of herbaria
North America
For herbaria with fewer than 200,000 specimens , see List of herbaria in North America .
This is a list of herbaria, organized first by continent where the herbarium is located, then within each continent by size of the collection. A herbarium (plural herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form, mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in alcohol or other preservative. The same term is often used in mycology to describe an equivalent collection of preserved fungi and in phycology to describe a collection of algae. To preserve their form and color, plants collected in the field are spread flat on sheets of newsprint and dried, usually in a plant press, between blotters or absorbent paper. The specimens, which are then mounted on sheets of stiff white paper, are labeled with all essential data, such as date and place found, description of the plant, altitude, and special habitat conditions. The sheet is then placed in a protective case. As a precaution against insect attack, the pressed plant is frozen or poisoned and the case disinfected. Most herbaria utilize a standard system of organizing their specimens into herbarium cases. Specimen sheets are stacked in groups by the species to which they belong and placed into a large lightweight folder that is labelled on the bottom edge. Groups of species folders are then placed together into larger, heavier folders by genus. The genus folders are then sorted by taxonomic family according to the standard system selected for use by the herbarium and placed into pigeonholes in herbarium cabinets.
Name No . Specimens Abbr Location Website
New York Botanical Garden 7,800,000 NY United States ; The Bronx , New York City , New York [ 94 ]
Missouri Botanical Garden 6,600,000 MO United States ; St. Louis , Missouri [ 95 ]
Harvard University Herbaria 5,005,000 A , AMES , ECON , FH , GH , NEBC United States ; Cambridge , Massachusetts [ 96 ]
United States National Herbarium , Smithsonian Institution 5,000,000 US United States ; Washington , D.C [ 97 ]
Field Museum 2,700,000 F United States ; Chicago , Illinois [ 98 ]
University and Jepson Herbaria , University of California , Berkeley 2,200,000 UC/JEPS United States ; Berkeley , California [ 99 ]
California Academy of Sciences , Herbarium 2,000,000 CAS/DS United States ; San Francisco , California [ 100 ]
University of Michigan Herbarium 1,750,000 MICH United States ; Ann Arbor , Michigan [ 101 ]
Academy of Natural Sciences 1,430,000 PH United States ; Philadelphia , Pennsylvania [ 102 ]
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada , Vascular Plant Herbarium 1,335,000 DAO , DAOM Canada ; Ottawa , Ontario
Wisconsin State Herbarium ( @ University of Wisconsin-Madison 1,200,750 WIS United States ; Madison , Wisconsin [ 103 ]
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México 1,120,000 MEXU Mexico ; Mexico City [ 104 ]
Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden 1,100,000 RSA/POM United States ; Claremont , California [ 105 ]
University of Texas at Austin 1,006,000 TEX United States ; Austin , Texas [ 106 ]
Botanical Research Institute of Texas 1,001,000 BRIT-SMU-VDB United States ; Fort Worth , Texas [ 107 ]
Instituto Politécnico Nacional , Mexico 950,000 ENCB Mexico ; Mexico City [ 108 ]
L.H . Bailey Hortorium Herbarium 860,000 BH United States ; Ithaca , New York [ 109 ]
Royal Ontario Museum 860,000 TRT , TRTC Canada ; Toronto , Ontario
Herbier Marie-Victorin , Université de Montréal 850,000 MT Canada ; Montreal , Quebec [ 110 ]
National Herbarium of Canada , Canadian Museum of Nature 838,000 CAN , CANM Canada ; Ottawa , Ontario [ 111 ]