The fungus collections of the herbarium of the State Museum of Natural History Karlsruhe (KR)

Number of specimens and collection focus

In 2003, the mycologist Dr. Markus Scholler was hired. He is the first mycologist at the Karlsruhe museum and he was asked to set up a fungus herbarium with a focus on Baden-Württemberg. Up to this point in time, the mycological collections, excluding lichens, only contained around 11,800 specimens, stored in the attic of the main building, Erbprinzenstraße, in poor condition. The most important collection within these old holdings comes from the Wertheim teacher Wilhelm Stoll (1832-1917) with around 1,100 items. In the period that followed, the collection was expanded to around 109,000 specimens (as of December 2021) through donations, a few purchases, as well as current collections from the curator and numerous other collectors, making it the largest fungus collection in Baden-Württemberg.For reasons of space, most of the collections were relocated to premises in Karlsruhe-Rheinhafen. Only the rust fungi remained in six cabinets in the Natural History Museum pavilion. The scientifically most important collections include (focus of the collections in brackets): Wolfgang Brandenburger (parasitic microfungi, especially rust fungi from Central Europe), Peter Döbbeler (rust fungi, Central America, Alps), Manfred Enderle (Psathyrella and other gilled fungi, Southern Germany), Hanns Kreisel (macrofungi, especially puffballs, including East Germany, Cuba), Lothar Krieglsteiner (macrofungi, Southern Germany), Doris Laber (macrofungi, Black Forest), Helga Marxmüller (macrofungi with a focus on Russula and Armillaria, southern Germany, France including  important watercolor collections), Gusztáv von Moesz (plant parasitic microfungi, Hungary and Slovakia, duplicates), Oskar Müller (rust fungi, Baden-Württemberg), Harald Ostrow (non-gilled macrofungi, southern Germany), Susanne Philippi (ascomycetes, Baden-Württemberg), Anke Schmidt (powdery mildew fungi, Northern Germany), Markus Scholler (plant parasitic microfungi, macrofungi, Europe, USA), Leopold Schrimpl (macrofungi, Southern Black Forest), Horst Staub/Ursula Sauter (macrofungi, Southwest Germany) and Wulfard Winterhoff (macrofungi, especially puffballs, gilled macrofungi). Furthermore, the historical collections of the University Herbarium Greifswald GFW (collections of Julius Münter and collaborators, Ludwig Rabenhorst and Franz Unger) were integrated into KR and the current collections from the Black Forest National Park. The latter will also be deposited in Karlsruhe in the future. Finally, there is a large number of exsiccata. The focus of the collections is geographically on Germany (all groups of fungi) and taxonomically on plant-parasitic microfungi, especially rust fungi and on puffballs (“Gasteromycetes”). There are particularly many collections from the federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Bayern, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Nordrhein-Westfalen und Sachsen. The number of types has not yet been fully evaluated and is currently 670.

The Database

More than 55,000 specimens (as of December 2021) have been digitized and can be viewed in simplified form in the Digital Catalogue of Fungi (including host and substrate) and in GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) (no information on host and substrate). The main purpose of the public database is to simplify loans.

Loans

For loans please contact the curator.