Phanerogams I + II

Digitization of Specimens from Rhön and Vogelsberg

The digitized specimens may be searched  via SeSam here:

or via GBIF unter:

Funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) allowed the technical curation and digitization of two important regional German collections.

Some estimated 10,000 specimens from the low mountain ranges of the Rhön and Vogelsberg were technically processed, georeferenced, determined and digitized into SeSam (incl. a scan of the specimen). The data are currently analysed but are publicly available via SeSam and GBIF.

This project allows to draw profound conclusions about changes in the distribution of plant species in Central European low mountain ranges, which are especially threatened by changes of climate and land use. Hence it is connected to the studies of the Research Institute “Biodiversity and Climate” (BiK-F). 

The project (applicants: Georg Zizka, Thomas Gregor, Stefan Dressler) started October 2009 and was completed in 2014.

The Herbarium of the Hohhaus Museum in Lauterbach comprises approx. 10,000 specimens and was deposited as a permanent loan in the Herbarium Senckenbergianum (FR) in 2002. 
It contains collections from the pharmacist Ernst Georg Dannenberg (1826-1896) from the Rhön Mountains and the vicinity of Fulda, as well as from other botanists working in the 20th century in the Vogelsberg area, e.g. Friedrich Hoffmann, Helmut Klein, Hans Hupke, Karl Maurer and teacher Rauber of Lauterbach.

In 2011 the herbarium collections of Otto Arnold (1885-1917) and August Vill (1851-1930) of the Rhönmuseum Fladungen were incorporated in the digitization project. A separate portal for the Rhönmuseum has been established. Ca. 1,500 specimens were digitized.

In 2012 an agreement with the Verein für Naturkunde in Osthessen e.V. was reached to digitize the society’s  herbarium FULD form Eastern Hesse (ca. 10,000 specimens). This concluded the digitization project.

Finally, ca. 25,500 specimens were digitized.