Art Cronquist's Hat
If you spend time looking at herbarium specimens collected by Arthur Cronquist,…
Plant species named after Alice Eastwood
Several botanists have honored Eastwood's contributions to science by naming new plant…
Weird & Wild Legumes
Cabinet of CuriositiesSpecimen Stories
Members of plant family Fabaceae (bean or legume family) produce a kind…
Royal Collector
Cabinet of CuriositiesCollectors
Prince Henri of Orléans, a French royal, collected this parasitic fungi in Tibet while…
Mary Emily Eaton
Mary Emily Eaton was an accomplished natural history illustrator employed at the…
What is a type specimen?
When a researcher names a new species (or other taxon) of algae,…
Typical: Hibiscadelphus stellatus
This type specimen is like a postcard from Hawaii reading "Wish you…
Prairie White Fringed Orchid
Nearly all of the habitat of the endangered Prairie White Fringed Orchid…
Damaged by enemy action
Herbarium specimens are windows into the past and can help us answer…
Good grief, Charles Geyer
Charles (Karl) A. Geyer was a pioneer botanical collector of the Northwestern…
A trip to Fire Island with Peggy Hopkins
While we might not get to summer with the likes of Madonna…
Typical: Astragalus cusickii var. packardiae
Covered in flower dissection illustrations by Rupert Barneby — we should all…
Women's Scientific Empowerment
Natural history was immensely popular in the Victorian era, but women were…
Smooth rock tripe
This Umbilicaria species is regarded to be one of the largest lichens…
Fig family, Moraceae
Ficus carica L., the edible common fig has been cultivated for millenia.…
Mary Treat
Those who have read Barbara Kingsolver's newest novel, Unsheltered, will be familiar with the…
Banded Mottlegill
This mushroom was called 'weed Panaeolus' because it would frequently grow as…