Biodiversity, which makes our rich life possible, is facing the greatest crisis among all environmental problems. In this lecture, we will discuss the evolution and crisis of living organisms from plant specimens accumulated in museums since the 14th century and international databases. First, the most closely related plant to the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, Arabidopsis lyrata, has shown adaptive evolution, with a markedly different lifespan in lowlands and highlands. Second, global warming has already had a widespread impact on the distribution of 2339 plant species in Japan. Biological specimens are the intellectual assets of humankind, telling us about the evolution and crisis of life.