Meise Botanic Garden Herbarium, Belgium (MBG-BR)

The Meise Botanic Garden is located in the grounds of Bouchout Castle in the town of Meise, just north of Brussels in the province of Flemish Brabant. It is one of the largest botanical gardens in the world with an extensive collection of living plants in addition to a herbarium of over 4 million specimens. The current garden was established in 1958 after it moved from the centre of Brussels; the former site is now the Botanical Garden of Brussels. Researchers at the garden conduct research particularly on Belgian and African plants.

The Botanic Garden contains about 18,000 plant species - about 6% of all known plant species of the world. Half are in greenhouses, the other half, including cultivated and indigenous plants, are outdoors. The gardens are grouped around the castle and lake of the Bouchout domain.

The institution was previously called the National Botanical Garden of Belgium, but was renamed Botanic Garden Meise in 2014.The management of the collections at the National Botanic Garden of Belgium was transferred from the Federal to Flemish Government on 1 January 2014. This has resulted in a number of changes, including the name of the institute that has officially become
Contact: Ann Bogaerts, Head of the Herbarium (ann.bogaerts@botanicgardenmeise.be or curator)
Collection Type: Preserved Specimens
Management: Data snapshot of local collection database
Last Update: 15 September 2022
Digital Metadata: EML File
Rights Holder: Meise Botanic Garden
Access Rights: Public Domain
Collection Statistics
  • 28,329 specimen records
  • 0 georeferenced
  • 92 (0.32%) identified to species
  • 217 families
  • 452 genera
  • 0 species
  • 6 total taxa (including subsp. and var.)
Extra Statistics
Geographic Distribution
Click on the specimen record counts within the parenthesis to return the records for that term