The General department of the Herbarium (more than 66,000 specimens) comprises herbarium specimens collected beyond Siberia (the European part of Russia, Crimea, the Caucasus, the Russian Far East, Western Europe, North America, Brazil, Japan, China, etc.). The collection was established by P.N. Krylov in the early years of the Herbarium; the collections brought by P.N. Krylov from Kazan served as the basis of the Herbarium. A collection of G. Trautsholda from Switzerland is stored there, as well as collections of I.P. Borodin and N.A. Bush from European Russia, of V.I. Lipsky from the Caucasus and Ukraine, of I.F. Schmalhausen and I.F. Pachosskiy from Ukraine, of Becker from Sarepta, of V.L. Komarov, N.V. Pavlov and S.Y. Lipschitz from the Far East. The department grew significantly in the Soviet period through the exchange with the Soviet Union’s and foreign herbaria. Currently the exchange has almost stopped due to the loss of communications that took place in the 90s and mostly due to customs difficulties. The General Herbarium is important for monographic studies of individual genera and families.
