All inquiries and requests should be addressed to the Curator Dr. Jurriaan de Vos.

Visitors

The collections are open to visitors by appointment. Tours for groups can also be arranged. Please note appointments to consult the collections need to be agreed on well in advance as staff time is limited. Facilities that visitors can make use of include a preparation microscope with mounted digital camera. We have no temporary accommodation available for visitors, but the city of Basel offers plenty of opportunities. The collections (except part of the historic specimens) are located in Bottmingen, just outside of Basel, Switzerland. Consult the section How to get here for more information.

Loans

Specimens can be sent on loan to institutions listed in the Index Herbariorum, but we prefer to provide high-resolution digital images of specimens if that suffices. No material may be removed unless permission is requested in advance. Specimens from historic collections (older than 1800) are in principle never sent on loan, but in exceptional cases (such as exhibitions), individual specimens can be requested. All decisions are made at the discretion of the Curator.

Mailing address for specimens: Herbaria Basel attn. Jurriaan de Vos, Dept. Environental Sciences - Botany, Schönbeinstrasse 6, 4056 Basel, Switzerland.

Destructive sampling

Although we in principle encourage use of herbarium specimens for DNA sequencing and isotope analysis, etc., we only allow removal of material for destructive sampling if a convincing case can be made that it is not feasible or possible to obtain material elsewhere. Thus, destructive sampling policy is "No, unless...". Requests need to be made in writing (an email to the Curator is fine), and detail: project title, names and affiliation of people involved (including the advisor in case of student projects), and a very short summary of the project emphasizing sampling design. Decisions are made on a case-by-case basis.