Collections
The Department of Biology is home to three collections of living and preserved specimen: the Garden and Greenhouse, the Wisconsin State Herbarium, and the UW Zoological Museum. These collections are indispensable assets for teaching, research and the protection of the planet’s biodiversity.
Botany Garden and Greenhouse
The Botany Garden and Greenhouses are living laboratories for teaching, research and outreach. Our living plant collections feature 2300 plant taxa from 220 families that provide students and visitors the opportunity to explore the vast diversity of plant life from habitats around the world.
Wisconsin State Herbarium
The Wisconsin State Herbarium documents and increases knowledge about the world’s flora, broadly defined to include plants & plant-like organisms. With over 1.39 million specimen, the Herbarium’s repository of preserved collections provides support for teaching and research.
UW Zoological Museum
The UW Zoological Museum is a depository for nearly 750,000 biological specimen used for teaching and research. It is dedicated to the preservation, study, and understanding of the vertebrate and aquatic fauna of Wisconsin, the Midwest, and other parts of the world.
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Botany Gardens featured in “A Campus to Fall For”
Take in autumn at UW–Madison, where Badgers welcome brisk days and burnished views. Read More.
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Faculty Q&A: Daniel Spalink uses systematics and collections to study global plant biodiversity
Daniel Spalink is a plant systematist and biogeographer. He integrates genetics with data on plant occurrences from global databases and herbaria around the world to improve our understanding of biodiversity. Spalink completed…
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The Flesh Eaters: UW Zoological museum’s Dermestarium featured on Channel 3000
Howard Veregin, the Wisconsin State Cartographer, joined John Stuhler, the curator of mammals and birds at the University of Wisconsin Zoological Museum for a trip to visit the flesh-eating dermestid beetle colony…
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Plant enthusiasts joined the Wisconsin Herbarium’s 2026 Foray in La Crosse County, Wi
By Elise Mahon This past July, the Wisconsin State Herbarium and Botanical Club of Wisconsin hosted their 8th annual foray. Over the course of three days, a total of 46 volunteers explored…