Natural History Museum of Marseille
Labelled "Musées de France" since 2002, the Natural History Museum of Marseille stands out with the scientific and heritage quality of its collections. It covers all the traditional disciplines of natural history museums through its botany, paleontology, mineralogy, zoology and human sciences collections.
Founded in 1819 under the dual leadership of the Marquis de Montgrand, Mayor of Marseille, and the Count of Villeneuve-Bargemon, Prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhône, the Natural History Museum of Marseille, at the crossroads between the cultures and natural spaces of Europe and the Mediterranean area, showcases exceptional naturalistic and heritage attractions, reflecting the political, economic, and scientific life since the beginning of the 19th century.
The oldest collections of the Natural history museum of Marseille were composed at the end of the 18th century and were collected in 1819. Today, the Herbarium of the Natural history museum of Marseille has about 63,000 sheets preserved in the Centre d’études et de conservation (Study and Preservation center) of the Museum.
The general herbarium (about 16,000 sheets) results from the accumulation of more or less ancient herbaria donated by naturalist botanist (Saporta, Roux, Reynier, Coste, Faure (flora of the Hautes-Alpes, Lombard (flora of the Dauphiné and Provence), Bertrand, Modena, Dr Tribout, Legré, Lieutaud, Nizius Roux, Abbé Letendre, Laurent etc.), and from plates donated by the National Museum.
In addition to this general herbarium, the Museum of Marseille has 5 other separate herbaria:
Legré Herbarium: composed of 243 large format binders of about 13,750 sheets and 108 small format binders (about 4,500 sheets).
Sauvaïgo Herbarium: This herbarium of about 12,700 sheets has been kept in its integrity following the donor's wishes. The genera are numbered according to the Durand index. It is an herbarium of general European flora, accompanied by more specific herbaria (Liguria, Corsica, Syria, Russia, introduced plants).
Bouvier Herbarium: 5,000 sheets (171 families).
Mercurin Herbarium: 1,074 sheets (92 families) of Mediterranean flora.
Herbarium of the Colonial Museum: about 2,000 sheets of flora from the French colonies of the 19th century.
In addition to this set, other collections were recently donated, such as those of Monsieur J. Marcoux and R. Roux, without forgetting the Laurent and Saporta's Grainier, made at the beginning of the 20th century as it contains 1,500 samples and was intended to serve as a reference to the study of fossil seeds.
Contact
Vincent Poncet : vponcet@marseille.fr