National Herbarium of Pakistan

Islamabad, Pakistan

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The National Herbarium of Pakistan, located in Islamabad, is the largest herbarium in Pakistan and serves as the country's premier facility for plant specimen collection, preservation, and systematic documentation. Established in 1975 by the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council (then ARC), it was founded with Dr. Ralph Randles Stewart's renowned collection as its initial beginning, having acquired approximately 50,000 specimens from Gordon College Rawalpindi. The herbarium houses over 100,000 plant specimens, with some sources reporting up to 180,000 specimens representing over 12,000 species from Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asian countries. The plant collections are scientifically organized into magnoliophytes (dicotyledons and monocotyledons), gymnosperms, and pteridophytes (ferns), arranged alphabetically by families, genera, and species. The specimens include 150 flowering plant families plus many gymnosperms and non-vascular plants, with 52 percent of all flowering plant genera represented, collected from all over Pakistan including Gilgit-Baltistan, Salt Range, Galliyat, deserts, Sindh, Balochistan, Azad Jammu, Kashmir, and the northern Himalayas. The herbarium's holdings include many important endangered, rare, and vulnerable plant species, making it a critical resource for biodiversity conservation.