The William C. Steere Bryophyte Herbarium

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The nucleus is the Columbia University herbarium, which already contained two important bryophyte components when it came to NYBG in 1895. One was the herbarium of August Jaeger (1842-1877), which contained about 12,500 specimens of mosses, the basis for a series of articles by Jaeger (and later F. W. Sauerbeck) that reviewed all known moss species. The Jaeger Herbarium contains duplicates of type specimens described by a range of other 19th century bryologists; its holdings of specimens described by Carl Müller and Ernst Hampe are especially important, since the primary herbarium of deposit of types of species described by Müller, the Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem Berlin (B), was destroyed during World War II. The second of the herbaria incorporated at the founding of the institution was the moss herbarium of Coe F. Austin (1831-1880), one of North America’s first bryologists, who made extensive collections in New Jersey and southern New York State. The Garden’s single largest bryological acquisition was the purchase in 1906 of the herbarium of William Mitten (1819-1906), which consisted of approximately 50,000 specimens of mosses and hepatics from all continents of the world. Mitten served unofficially as bryologist for the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and had free access to the bryophyte collections from the many botanical expeditions sponsored by the British Government in the 19th century. Mitten’s 72 publications described over one thousand new species based on the collections made on some of the most famous 19th century scientific expeditions: J.D. Hooker’s collections made in southern South America, Australia, New Zealand and other south temperate areas on the Antarctic voyage of H.M. discovery ships Erebus and Terror (1839-1843) and his exploration of the Himalayan region with Thomas Thompson from 1847-1851; Richard Spruce’s collections from his 15 years of botanical collecting in South America (1849-1864); collections by I. B. Balfour, Mungo Park and Gustav Mann from Africa; and collections by Allan Cunningham and Ferdinand von Mueller from Australia and New Zealand, and David Douglas and Charles Lyall from North America. A relatively small number of collections by Charles Darwin on the voyage of the Beagle are also included. In 1945 the Garden acquired the herbarium of Princeton University. Bryologically this was important because of the collections of Per Karl Hjalmar Dusén (1855-1926) from southern Argentina and Chile and the collections of J. B. Hatcher, identified by Dusén, from the Princeton University Expeditions to Patagonia in 1896-1899. In 1968 the Arctic bryophytes of Stanford University (4580 specimens) were transferred to NY when Steere, previously Dean of the Graduate School at Stanford, moved to NY to take over the directorship. Additional bryophyte herbaria acquired include University of Kansas (1969), Florida State University (1973) DePauw University (1986) and Wellesley College (1988). A more comprehensive list of the major collectors represented in the herbarium is also available.

William C. Steere, Bryologist

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In October 1998, the Garden’s bryophyte collection was dedicated as the William C. Steere Bryophyte Herbarium in honor of the late former Garden President, whose specialty and passion was the study of the world’s bryophytes.

To the all-too-common question: “What good are mosses anyway?” William C. Steere, Sr., used to answer: “Well, they’ve supported me and my family all these years!” A passion for mosses may surprise laypersons, but for a botanist, looking at mosses through a microscope is entering a world of extraordinary beauty. Mosses play an important ecological role: they absorb and release water slowly, thereby maintaining humidity in the atmosphere. Mosses and liverworts are found all over the world, from the tropics to the polar regions, and even the deserts. Only marine environments thwart the growth of mosses because of their salt content. Bryophytes are estimated to include 40,000 species.

When Steere began his work on mosses in the early 1930s, bryology was a field filled primarily with amateurs. Through the strength of his scientific contributions and his editing of The Bryologist, the journal of the American Bryological and Lichenological Society, he raised the field to a new scientific level. Because of his own strong taxonomic background, William Campbell Steere, Sr., took an immediate interest in the Garden’s Herbarium, especially the bryophytes, when he became Garden President in 1958.

As Garden President, he revived the Garden’s bryological tradition that began with Elizabeth Britton, wife of the Garden’s founder Nathaniel Lord Britton. When private and institutional herbaria became available, he secured them for the Garden. Through his involvement with the National Science Foundation, he was instrumental in establishing the division that provides grants for facilities improvements, through which the Garden has received millions of dollars, including nearly $1 million for cases and compactors for the new facility.

Ever active in the field, Steere collected many new specimens himself, particularly from Arctic America and Ecuador/Andean South America. He was the first bryologist to visit the northern slopes of the American Arctic Mountains. On his expedition to Antarctica he found a rich and endemic moss flora. Because of his efforts, the Garden was designated as a national repository for Antarctic bryophytes. Upon his retirement, Steere worked to identify mosses that he and others had collected, resulting in tens of thousands of specimens becoming available to the scientific community.

The William C. Steere Bryophyte Herbarium, the largest such collection in the Western Hemisphere, contains approximately 600,000 specimens preserved and available for scientific study and consultation.

Bryological Research at The Garden

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Because of the firm foundation Britton laid to the bryophyte herbarium, bryology has had a traditionally prominent position in the research program at The New York Botanical Garden since its inception. Elizabeth G. Britton was the wife of the founder and first Director of the New York Botanical Garden, Nathaniel L. Britton. Elizabeth Britton was a respected bryologist and very influential in the American bryological community. She collected extensively in the West Indies and North America, and published many articles on bryophytes. Britton had a wide correspondence and active exchange program and, thus, obtained much type and authentic material from colleagues around the country and from Europe. Other staff members active in bryology in the early years of the institution were Lucien Underwood, whose personal herbarium included, in addition to his own types, a very nearly complete set of Richard Spruce’s species described in his Hepaticae Amazonicae et Andinae, Marshall A. Howe, who was the first professionally trained bryologist to collect in California and whose research findings were recorded in his hepatic flora of California, and R S. Williams, who collected extensively in Peru, and became the Garden’s first expert in non-North American bryophytes. The tradition of bryological research at NYBG continues to the present. William R. Buck has published extensively on the systematics of pleurocarpous mosses and the moss floras of the Greater Antilles and central French Guiana. In addition to studies of the hepatic family Lejeuneaceae, Barbara Thiers has headed up projects to index type specimens of Mitten and Spruce and to database the bryophyte herbarium, resulting in the American Bryophyte Catalog.