New South Wales’ biosecurity heritage is on display at the Orange Regional Museum (ORM) from Saturday.

Plant pathology curator, Jordan Bailey said NSW Department of Primary Industries collections are the largest of their kind in Australia with samples of insects, mites, fungi, bacteria, viruses and nematodes dating back to 1890.

“We have digitised our specimens as high resolution images, which is a great way to share them with scientists around the world and now we are offering the public access to our work.”

Dr Bailey said the oldest specimen in the herbarium was collected around 1802 by Robert Brown.

“Brown joined Matthew Flinders on his journey to chart the Australian coast and collected plant specimens along the way,” she said.

Dr Bailey said there was an interesting story or person linked to nearly every specimen.

“Some include notes and photos or letters from the collector, with notable insect specimens from WW Froggatt, the founder of the Naturalists' Society of NSW,” she said.

Original artworks by EH Zeck and other natural history artists, including Orange local, Dorothy Noble, are available to the public through Redbubble, a print on demand service.

Unearthing the biosecurity heritage of NSW is on display alongside Paddock to Plate: a history of food and wine in Orange exhibition.