Vascular plants

Focus on Africa, Europe, and the Amazon

The definition of a vascular plant is in the name.  All vascular plants, such as flowering plants, conifers, ferns, and horsetails, have vascular tissues to transport water, minerals, and nutrients, allowing them to grow taller than nonvascular plants.

Our collection reflects above all the Botanic Garden's more than 130 years of involvement in the study of the flora of Central Africa (the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi). This makes both the collection and its research the reference point for knowledge of this flora. 

The 19th-century interest in South America is also clearly visible in our collection. There is the collection compiled before 1870 by the 'Societé Royale d'Horticulture'. This includes the Mexican collections of Henri Galeotti and the Brazilian collection of Peter Claussen. In addition, the world-famous herbarium of Carl Friedrich von Martius, with plants from the Amazon region, was purchased by the Belgian government in 1870. 

An important recent acquisition, acquired in 2014, is the historical and scientifically important herbarium of Henri Van Heurck. Of course, we should not forget to mention that, as far as native flora is concerned, the herbarium of Meise Botanic Garden is still the reference herbarium for Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.