Introduction to the Herbarium

Palestine is situated in the Eastern Mediterranean and hosts one of the world’s most complex ecosystems, renowned for its rich floristic biodiversity and high concentration of native plant species. Yet despite this richness, the region’s natural resources remain vulnerable — threatened by land misuse, urban expansion, and the continuous deterioration of plant cover.

Wild plants have long been humanity’s primary source of food and medicine, and Palestine stands as one of the world’s key centers of plant domestication. Today, as interest in natural lifestyles and medicinal plants continues to grow, the need to document, preserve, and protect this botanical heritage has never been greater.

The An-Najah National University Herbarium was established in direct response to this need. It serves as a scientific reference for Palestinian and international researchers, housing a systematically classified, pressed, dried, labeled, and catalogued collection of wild plant specimens — each assigned a unique herbarium voucher number. Alongside the physical collection, a comprehensive photographic database documents plants in their natural habitats, capturing their classification, distribution, and ecological characteristics.

Explore the collection below and discover Palestine’s living botanical legacy.