• The lichen collection "Abramo Massalongo".

    The Abramo Massalongo lichen collection includes 594 exsiccata of 490 taxa, mainly collected in North-Eastern Italy between 1845 and 1855 by Massalongo himself. The specimens - either placed in envelopes or glued on cardboard - are preserved on 231 loose herbarium sheets divided into four issues. For details on the collection, click here.

Query the collection



A list of all the specimens in the collection ordered by taxon name is available by clicking here.

Otherwise, it is possible to query the database by string in the taxon name (case insensitive). Taxon names are those originally adopted by Massalongo, and are not updated to the currently accepted nomenclature.



Localities of collection


The collection includes specimens mostly collected in North-Eastern Italy, especially from the areas of the province of Verona and the village of Tregnago, the birthplace of Massalongo. Other specimens were collected in Friuli Venezia Giulia and Trentino-Alto Adige, others abroad (Germany, Spain, France, Sweden and Lapland).
Being an historical collection, the information about the gathering localities inferred from the labels does not have the same level of accuracy as modern specimens. Toponyms were therefore found, and where needed updated, based on historical maps (such as Arcanum Maps). The localities were geo-referenced by means of the Italian Military Geographic Institute maps, the Carta Tecnica Regionale del Veneto, and Google Maps (Google Geocoding API). A degree of uncertainty - represented by the radius of the circle that encloses the locality - was also assessed on the basis of the extent (modern and/or historical) of the localities.


Map of Italian localities of collection of the specimens.