Bulletin of the Natural History Museum, 2011, 4: 67-118. Received 07 Sep 2011; Accepted 02 Dec 2011. UDC: 58.082.5:069.51(497.11)"1876/1886" ; 929:61 Петровић С. HERBARIUM COLLECTION BY SAVA PETROVIĆ IN THE HERBARIUM OF THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM IN BELGRADE MIROSLAV JOVANOVIĆ Natural History Museum, Njegoševa 51, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia, e-mail:
[email protected] The General Herbarium of the Natural History Museum (BEO) includes part of the herbarium material collected by the great Serbian botanist Dr Sava Petrović (1839-1889). Considering the importance of S. Petrović’s work for the botanical science of the 19th century, his herbarium has an important position from both a scientific and a museological standpoint. This herbarium collection has been conserved and inventoried. It was determined that it includes 648 herbarium sheet covers with 629 plant species, and the average age of the museum specimens is around 130 years. Key words: Sava Petrović, Herbarium, Natural History Museum, Belgrade INTRODUCTION The General Herbarium of the Balkan Peninsula at the Natural History Museum in Belgrade (BEO) includes collections of mosses, fungi, lichens and higher plants. The largest collection is the Collection of Higher Plants, 68 JOVANOVIĆ, M.: HERBARIUM COLLECTION BY SAVA PETROVIĆ with over 160,000 herbarium sheet covers and more than 500,000 specimens distributed in 2210 herbarium boxes. In addition to the “A collection” of type material from the treasury of herbarium at the Natural History Museum, the oldest collections prepared by the pioneers of Serbian botany, Dr Josif Pančić and Dr Sava Petrović, must also be mentioned.