University of Tartu Natural History Museum (TU)

Taxonomic Coverage: Vascular plants, bryophytes, algae, fungi and lichens; Iconotheca of Desmidales, collection of K.Thomasson. Geography: Estonia and Northern Europe, Russia (incl. Caucasus, Siberia and Far East), Australia, Africa and South America. Part of the Estonian national fungal collections: Dried specimens of mushrooms and lichens are stored in four main collections in Estonia, the largest collections of which are located in Tartu (University of Tartu and Estonian University of Life Sciences) and the smaller ones in Tallinn (Tallinn Botanical Garden and Estonian Museum of Natural History). In total, about 600,000 dried specimens are stored in mushroom collections. Most of the materials kept in mushroom collections have been collected from Estonia, but a large part of the materials brought from the territory of the former USSR also form a large part. Nowadays, scientists have brought mushroom lichens from all continents. The collection of live fungal cultures consists of fungi that are grown on agar medium and kept alive under controlled conditions.

Contacts: Irja Saar, irja.saar@ut.ee
Collection Type: Preserved Specimens
Management: Data snapshot of local collection database
Last Update: 3 November 2022
IPT / DwC-A Source:
Digital Metadata: EML File
Collection Statistics
  • 134,207 specimen records
  • 95,532 (71%) georeferenced
  • 625 GenBank, 13,772 misc genetic references
  • 104,621 (78%) identified to species
  • 409 families
  • 1,597 genera
  • 8,135 species
  • 8,725 total taxa (including subsp. and var.)
Extra Statistics