The Department of Botany, within the Department of Biology at the Faculty of Science, Mersin University, is one of the pioneering departments established in 1994, when the Biology Department began its educational activities. The department conducts education, research, and applied studies on the systematics, morphology, anatomy, physiology, ecology, and evolution of plants.

The Department of Botany offers theoretical, laboratory, and field-based courses at undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels, aiming to develop students’ scientific knowledge, observation, analytical, and interpretative skills. The educational programs focus on plant life cycles, interactions with the environment, roles in ecosystem dynamics, and their economic importance.

The faculty members of the department contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge through national and international research on the identification of the Turkish flora, conservation of endemic and rare species, ecophysiological adaptations, and molecular systematics.

The department hosts several laboratories, including Plant Systematics, Plant Anatomy, Plant Physiology, Palynology, Molecular Systematics, and Plant Tissue Culture Laboratories, providing opportunities for research and hands-on experience. Undergraduate and graduate students actively participate in research projects conducted in these laboratories, gaining valuable experience and developing into future scientists.

MERA Herbarium

The Herbarium of the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science and Letters, Mersin University was established in 1996. It currently houses approximately 8,000 plant specimens native to the Mediterranean Region. The majority of these are seed plants, while around 550 specimens represent non-seed plants, including marine algae, lichens, mosses, liverworts, and ferns.

The herbarium serves as a type of genetic repository and plant museum, preserving plant specimens collected from various natural habitats. These specimens are dried, pressed, treated or frozen, then mounted on herbarium sheets along with detailed labels indicating the species or genus name, family, collector’s name, collection date and altitude, collection site, origin (if gifted), and the identifier’s name. The specimens are organized systematically—either evolutionarily or alphabetically—in steel cabinets. The herbarium is used by researchers, collectors, and plant enthusiasts, and contributes to the preservation of biological knowledge for future generations.

Among its collections are members of the Fabaceae, Poaceae, and Asteraceae families, which include many plant species of high agricultural and nutritional importance, as well as Lamiaceae, which contains species valuable in medicine and cosmetics. The herbarium also holds representatives of Orchidaceae, a family of tuberous plants increasingly threatened in nature. Additionally, ornamental plants from Mersin’s parks are preserved as part of the collection.

One of the herbarium’s remarkable specimens is Jurinea cypria , a plant once considered endemic to Cyprus and described from the southern part of the island. A specimen collected in Mersin and donated to the Gazi University Herbarium provided the first record of this species in mainland Turkey after many years, offering significant evidence for the geological connection between Cyprus and the Mersin coast. Another notable specimen is Flueggia anatolica, a relict endemic species from the Tertiary period, whose dried sample collected from Yalamık Village, Tarsus, is preserved at the MERA Herbarium.

The MERA Herbarium is officially registered in the Index Herbariorum and is open to research and educational visits. It has been visited by university and high school students, as well as by distinguished researchers such as Leonard Ellis (Natural History Museum, London), İbrahim Atalay (Dokuz Eylül University), Sırrı Yüzbaşıoğlu (Istanbul University), Atilla Ocak (Eskişehir University), Emine Erman Kara (Niğde University), and scientists from Harran, Erciyes, and Selçuk Universities, along with TRT staff and local nature guides from Mersin.