The Berlin Botanical Garden is a central facility of the Free University of Berlin and, with over 43 hectares and around 18,500 taxa at species and subspecies level, one of the largest plant collections in the world. As a service facility of the Botanical Garden, the Dahlem Seed Bank (DSB) stores more than 18,000 seed accessions. Some of the seeds were collected in the wild, while others were taken from the living collection of the Botanical Garden.
Our first online Index seminum with a shopping cart ordering system was developed with the support of colleagues from the Center for Biodiversity Informatics and Collection Data Integration at the Berlin Botanical Garden.
Index Seminum staff
Scientific and custodial responsibility
Scientific Director, Department of Biological Collections, Dr. Gerald Parolly
Curator Dahlem Seed Bank, Dr. Elke Zippel
Curator Tropical and Subtropical Living Collections, Dr. Nils Köster
Curator, Mediterranean and Temperate Living Collections, Birgit Nordt
Data entry, order processing and shipping
Technical Manager, Dahlem Seed Bank, Thomas Dürbye
Horticultural technician assistant, Daniela Bunde
Technical realisation
Center for Biodiversity Informatics and Collection Data Integration, Gabi Dröge, Dominik Röpert, Frank Specht
Geographical data
Coordinates: 52°27'13"N 13°18'06"E
Height above sea level: 55 m
Garden area: 43ha
Greenhouse area: 17.000 m2
Climate graph Berlin-Dahlem
Period: 2015 - 2024
Meteorological data, Berlin-Dahlem, FU, Botanischer Garten
| Year | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | mean value |
| Average temperature in °C | 10,7 | 10,2 | 10,1 | 11,1 | 11,2 | 11,1 | 9,9 | 11,1 | 11,1 | 11,8 | 10,84 |
| Average maximum values in °C | 15,4 | 14,5 | 14,1 | 15,9 | 15,8 | 15,7 | 14,2 | 15,7 | 15,4 | 16,3 | 15,29 |
| Average minimum values in °C | 6,1 | 6 | 6,1 | 6,5 | 6,5 | 6,6 | 5,8 | 6,4 | 6,9 | 7,1 | 6,49 |
| Absolute maximum values in °C | 37,9 | 34,6 | 31,5 | 37 | 37,6 | 35,7 | 35,2 | 37,6 | 34,3 | 34,1 | 35,08 |
| Absolute minimum values in °C | -6 | -11,5 | -9,6 | -12,5 | -6,8 | -4,8 | -12,2 | -10,4 | -8 | -10,6 | -9,8 |
| Annual precipitation in mm | 497,5 | 503,5 | 854,1 | 359,3 | 506,5 | 477,4 | 562,3 | 355,5 | 777,5 | 558,8 | 550,54 |
| Number of rainy days * | 157 | 159 | 193 | 112 | 159 | 148 | 173 | 143 | 187 | 158 | 159,11 |
| Number of hours of sunshine | 1955,6 | 1819,5 | 1706,2 | 2304,2 | 2053,7 | 2075,5 | 1773,3 | 2183,9 | 1915,9 | 2004,6 | 1981,87 |
* Number of days with >= 0.1 mm precipitation
Data source: Institut für Meterologie, Freie Universitat Berlin