The Garden’s first fern curator, Lucien M. Underwood (staff member, 1896-1907), attracted many collections as one of the world’s outstanding fern authorities. His own collections from North America and the West Indies added substantially to our holdings. Underwood added many types to the herbarium through his description of new species and also acquired thousands of types fragments and other authentic material from European herbaria. The Pteridophyte collection has continued to grow thanks to the research of NYBG ferns curators John T. Mickel (staff member 1969-1998), who added significant collections for Mexico, Costa Rica, Hispaniola, and Trinidad, and monographic studies of Anemia and Elaphoglossum, and Robbin C. Moran (staff member 1998-2020), who collected extensively across Central America and the northern Andes, with an emphasis on monographic research in Elaphoglossum and Campyloneurum.