The Herbarium of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (HITBC) was founded in Xishuangbanna Yunnan China, in 1958, at 21°41′N,101°25′E. Specimens in HITBC were accumulated mainly by undertook projects of investigation of the tropical plant resources in southern Yunnan, such as projects of Myristicaceae, Guttiferae in <Flora of China>, <Flora of Yunnan>, <List of plant in Xishuangbanna>, Flora of Dai Medicinal Plants in Xishuangbanna (three volumes), and also carried on some cooperation activities with the local forest department on the <Tree Flora of Yunnan>, establishment and management of the nature reserves. HITBC is financially supported by Chinese Academy of Sciences, and now a new modern herbarium building of two floors was built up, within it temperature and humidity are controlled, fire protection and alarm system are used. Steel compactors for placement of specimens replaced the wooden cabinets that had been used for more than 40 years. The space of the compactors is designed enough for 500,000 sheets of mounted specimens, 25 duplicates, and 10,000 bottles of specimen parts soaked with chemical liquid. Cleaning of specimens is under -30oC,study condition is also improved by adding of some new equipments. HITBC ended the 41 years of using virulent chemicals for killing of insects, and the problem of mildew is also resolved. Now HITBC is mainly functional for plant diversity conservation of XTBG.   

Types of specimens and systems of arrangement

   The main collections in HITBC are focused on vascular plants in Tropical Yunnna, but some specimens are also from subtropical and temperate area via specimen exchange. Up to the date on 30th April 2004 in the database, there are 106,000 sheets of mounted specimens, 40,000 duplicates, within the mounted specimens there are about 86,000 sheets of angiosperms, 700 sheets of gymnosperms, 13000 sheets of ferns, 18 sheets of mosses, and also some bottles of soaked flowers of Zingiberaceae and Orchidaceae. Type specimens are 556 sheets altogether. Three taxonomic systems are used for the arrangement of the specimens: Ching R. C's System (1978) for ferns, Zheng Wangjun's System (1978) for gymnosperms and J. Hutchinson's System (1926, 1934) for angiosperms. Genus and species are arranged alphabetically. All the information of specimens have been managed in database. Now all the mounted specimens with digital photos with each are available to be check on http://www.xtbg.org.cn