Every specimen tells a story. The Hand Lens brings the collections of the William & Lynda Steere Herbarium to life through stories inspired by our specimens. Explore how plants, fungi, lichens, and algae connect to science, history, art, culture, and more. Search below or browse by topic to discover the remarkable stories preserved by the collections in our care.
Collected On This Day
Botanists travel around the world collecting specimens to document biodiversity. This requires trips throughout the seasons to collect plants, algae, and fungi at all stages of their life cycle. The Steere Herbarium contains specimens collected on every day of the year!
Check out the Virtual Herbarium to see what was collected on today’s date.
View AllSpecimen Highlights
Join Us!
Help us transcribe some of the millions of digitized pages of records in our herbarium. Transcription is an important way for us to improve search results and increase accessibility to our historical records.
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