National Herbarium of Rwanda (UR-NHR)

The National Herbarium of Rwanda is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific studies.The herbarium holds 17,000 specimens which have been collected for the past 90 years.

The National Herbarium of Rwanda Upgrading and Digitizing Project will valorise this national treasure which represents the rich flora of the Great Lakes and Albertine Rift Region. The Project will upgrade and update specimens, protect them from insect damage, and digitise the collection, cleaning and publishing the data through an online global database to be hosted by the Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resources Management (CoEB) at the University of Rwanda in partnership with the National Industrial Research and Development Agency (NIRDA) and the Institute of National Museums of Rwanda (INMR). The project represents a unique collaboration among these three institutions and includes South-South and North-South partnerships to ensure. The herbarium is in process of digitising the specimens to make them available to the scientific community. The work started in 2019.

Historically, considerable collecting and study of the central African flora was done during Belgian King Leopold's rule to the extent that an estimated 85% of the specimens ever collected in Rwanda are represented in the BR herbarium. The National Herbarium of Rwanda works in partnership with other herbariums in Burundi, Uganda, DRC and Belgium.

Contact: Minani Vedaste (minaved2005@yahoo.fr)

Home Page: www.coebiodiversity.ur.ac.rw

Collection Type: Preserved Specimens

Management: Data snapshot of local collection database

Digital Metadata: EML File

Usage Rights: CC BY-NC (Attribution-Non-Commercial)

Rights Holder: University of Rwanda

Access Rights: Public Domain

• 0 specimen records
• 1 georeferenced
• 1 (INF%) with images
• 1 (INF%) identified to species
• 1 families
• 1 genera
• 1 species
• 1 total taxa (including subsp. and var.)