Since Prof. Dr. Josef Poelt (died in 1995) began to establish a lichen-section in herbarium GZU, many valuable collections either from former times (e.g. old exsiccata) or (and especially) from the recent past make GZU one of the most important sources for lichenological studies world-wide.  Especially the herbarium for lichenicolous fungi - which is separated from the main lichen herbarium - belongs to worlds two largest institutions for "fungi lichenicoli" (mainly due to the extensive collections of Dr. Josef Hafellner).

The following list contains some extra-European countries (or regions) from where several important collections of lichens (and lichen-parasites) are housed in GZU (collectors are put in parenthesis):
 

• Argentinia: Tierra del Fuego (Poelt)
• Australia + Tasmania (Mayrhofer)
• Bolivia (H. & H. Doppelbaur)
• Brasil (Poelt)
• Canada: British Columbia (Poelt)
• Chile (Poelt)
• Costa Rica (Hafellner, Poelt, Grube, Matzer)
• Canary Islands (Hafellner, Mayrhofer)
• Ethiopia (Miehe)
• Greenland (Poelt)
• Himalayas: Nepal, Tibet (Poelt, Miehe, Dickoré, Obermayer, Wündisch, Kirschbaum)
• Karakorum (Poelt, Miehe, Dickoré)
• Marocco (Poelt)
• Mexico: Baja California (Hafellner, Mayrhofer, Poelt), Sonora (Poelt)
• Mongolia (Miehe)
• Namibia + South Africa (Wetschnig)
• New Zealand (Mayrhofer)
• Peru: (P. Hegewald)
• Tibetan Plateau and fringe-mountains (Obermayer, Miehe, Wündisch, Dickoré)
• Tunesia (Poelt)
• USA: Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, Michigan (Poelt)
• Venezuela (Hafellner, Komposch)