W. Szafer Institute of Botany, Kraków

The W. Szafer Institute of Botany of the Polish Academy of Sciences combines laboratories with an archive of Polish diversity. Its mission covers research into the evolution and biodiversity of plants and fungi — from molecular data to the functioning of ecosystems. For mycology the KRAM herbarium is particularly important, because it holds material confirmation of the occurrence of species and makes it possible to re-check identifications after taxonomic changes.

The official description of the KRAM F collection gives more than 61,100 catalogued fungal specimens and about 50,000 awaiting full curation. Basidiomycetes predominate, and a substantial part of the material comes from Poland and Europe. The collection also contains specimens from Africa, South America and Asia, collections of epiphytic and phytopathogenic fungi, Laboulbeniales and nomenclatural types. The figures are not a simple list of species: many specimens may document the same taxon in different places and years.

Such series are crucial for assessing change. A single record says that an organism was once found; a set of labels allows shifts in range, hosts and timing to be studied. Modern methods can extract microscopic and chemical characters from old specimens, and sometimes genetic material. At the same time a sample is a finite resource, so destructive sampling requires justification and a curator's consent.

The institute on Lubicz street is a research establishment, not a museum operating on a walk-in basis. Access to the collection has to be arranged with the relevant unit, stating the group of organisms, the purpose and the date. Someone without a research project can use the institute's publications, digital databases, events and outreach. Before travelling it is worth distinguishing the address of the whole establishment from a particular store or laboratory. KRAM's most important "exhibit" is not the handsomest fruiting body but a specimen with a complete label, verifiable by the next generation of researchers. It is the complete label that turns a found fragment into durable scientific data.

A specimen as evidence of occurrence

Kraków's KRAM collections show why a distribution map should lead back to documentation. In his critical checklist of Poland's larger Basidiomycetes, Władysław Wojewoda drew not only on literature but also on herbarium vouchers, including material preserved at KRAM. A properly documented specimen ties a name to place, date, habitat and collector, allowing an identification to be checked or revised later. Some historic publications and Institute data are available through Poland's Digital Repository of Scientific Institutes, but the physical collections remain research infrastructure. Access to particular material should be arranged directly with the Institute rather than assumed to operate like admission to a public museum display.