The collections of the National Herbarium of New South Wales date from 1770, made by botanists Sir Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander on Captain James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific. By 1900, the Herbarium contained 15,000 named species – almost all the species then known in NSW.
The Herbarium has been located within the
Robert Brown Building at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney since it was constructed in 1982, with little to no change to the facility or the operations since that time. The building has declining environmental controls placing the growing collection of over 1.4 million botanical specimens at risk from mould and insect infestations.
The Herbarium collection has recently been valued at over $289 million. With over 8000 new specimens being added to the collection every year, the Herbarium's storage capacity in the Robert Brown Building will also be exhausted by 2022. It is time critical that we create a new facility to fix these deficiencies and ensure our collection can grow and be utilised by other Herbaria around the world.