VH/de, the German Virtual Herbarium, is a dynamic online resource providing free access to the extensive plant collections in German herbaria. Germany’s herbaria house over 15 million specimens of vascular plants, bryophytes and macroalgae. These specimens provide a permanent record of the occurrence of a species at a particular place and time, and are a primary resource for research on the systematics, taxonomy and distribution of plants as well as changes in the German flora.

VH/de is a collaborative project of German herbaria of different size and affinities, initiated by GBIF Germany (www.gbif.de) and developed with financial support from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, grant number 01 LI 1001 A).

About 440,000 specimens are currently databased and accessible via the VH/de. New specimen records are added progressively as herbaria continue to database and digitise their collections, and existing records are updated to reflect name changes and data validation work.