General description

The Botanical Museum of Oulu (OULU) is a unit integrated in the Department of Biology of the University of Oulu. The Botanical Museum was established in 1961 and it has contributed essentially to the knowledge of the flora of northern Finland.

The number of specimens is about 0.5 million (vascular plants, bryophytes and fungi). One of the main missions is to maintain and augment the collections in its priority areas.

The research activities of the museum include floristic surveys, taxonomy, systematics, and biodiversity (threatened species). The museum provides scientific and technical support for the research projects of the department.

The Botanical museum has close contacts to the environmental administration in addressing the status and distribution of threatened species. Its activities have been coordinated together with the Finnish Museum of Natural History.

The Botanical Museum is located at the Botanical Gardens and it has modern research and teaching facilities. These include, e.g., dissecting microscope, UV-room, thin-layer chromatography and DNA-extraction. PCR equipment and automated capillary sequensing facility is available at the Genetics Laboratory.