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Faculty of Pharmacy Herbarium MAF


Description of Funds

The funds consist of 200,000 specimens of dried herbal plants as a result of the botanical research carried out since the end of the 18th century. Most of them are references to projects and scientific publications. The collection also includes more than 200 types or specimens that have been taxon (species, genus or family). The collections are organized by three different criteria, taxonomic groups (1. Seaweeds,  2. Fungi,  3. Lichens,  4. Moss, 5. Fem), Biogeographical peculiarities,  (6. Neotropical Plants: South America) and historical background (7. Pourret Herbarium).

The new specimens have been filed in a data base since 1990. Information about some collections is already available on internet (www.gbif.es).

In addition, there are collections exclusively dedicated to teaching (reference herbarium, medicinal plants and laboratory collections). Some of the latter are temporary collections and therefore  not considered part of the MAF Herbarium

The History of the Collection

The oldest part of the collection belongs to P. A. Pourret, a French priest based in Galicia in the late XVIII century. The Faculty of Pharmacy of Santiago de Compostela donated the collection to the former Faculty of Pharmacy of Madrid.

Blas Lazaro e Ibiza, founder of the Chair of Botany at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Complutense University of Madrid, integrated the Pourret collection with his own collections and with the collections of the “Sociedad Lineana de Madrid”. All of them have been exhibited since December, 1892 in the current location.

Up to now, Blas Lázaro Ibiza, Salvador Rivas Mateos, José Cuatrecasas, Salvador Rivas Godoy and Salvador Rivas Martínez have successively been the promoters of the collection.