Australasian Virtual Herbarium (AVH)

Herbaria in Australia and New Zealand house over seven million plant, algae and fungi specimens. Herbarium specimens are an important resource for research on the Australian flora and provide a permanent record of the occurrence of a species at a particular place and time. AVH provides access to the collecting data associated with these specimens. The Australasian Virtual Herbarium (AVH) is an online resource that provides dynamic access to the wealth of plant specimen data held by Australian herbaria. AVH is a collaborative project of the Commonwealth, state and territory herbaria, under the auspices of the Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria (CHAH). Herbarium specimens are accompanied by information on where and when they were collected, by whom, their current identification, and information on habitat and associated species. So far, approximately 75 per cent of the specimens housed in Australian herbaria have been databased. AVH is a dynamic resource. New specimen records are added as herbaria continue to database their ever-growing collections, and existing records are updated to reflect name changes and data validation work.