Gross
Sometimes collecting the perfect specimen means going places you'd rather not. Here…
Insect Zombies
Cordyceps are parasitic fungi that often parasitize insects in a way that…
Ellen's Algae
See more of Ellen Hutchin's beautifully detailed marine algae collections.
Typical: Double type
A herbarium's version of a double rainbow — a double type specimen.…
Sugar pine
Called "the most princely of the genus" by David Douglas, sugar pine…
Dolly's Lichen
NYBG lichen curator James Lendemer and then-PhD student Jessi Allen named this…
Fancy Foliage
Where did that sweet little potted plant sitting on your window sill…
John Muir
John Muir (1838–1914) was an influential naturalist and conservationist, and co-founder of the…
Ellen Hutchins - Ireland's First Female Botanist
Between 1805 and 1813, in Ballylickey on the shores of Bantry Bay,…
#plantlove
Specimens contained in the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium represent the endless…
David Hosack's Elgin Botanic Garden
Elgin Botanic Garden was the first public botanical garden in the United…
Otto Kuntze
Carl Ernst Otto Kuntze was a german botanist who made expeditions to every…
The Brittons: Partners in Life and Botany
The establishment of The New York Botanical Garden was the result of…
Ancient plant DNA
Using a NYBG herbarium specimen, PhD grad student Lizzie Joyce turned back…
John Torrey on Gray's Peak
In 1861 Charles Parry was the first explorer to ascend Gray's Peak…
Springtime with Peter Zika
If seasonal allergies or the depths of winter have got you down,…
John Torrey
John Torrey (1796-1873) is considered one of the most influential American botanists…
J. K. Small's exploration in Southern Florida, 1915
John Kunkel Small, botanist and herbarium curator at the the New York Botanical…
John Kunkel Small
John Kunkel Small (1869-1938) was a taxonomist and botanical explorer, who specialized…
Carnivorous plants
Cabinet of CuriositiesFocus on Science
Watch out, these plants are hungry! Most carnivorous plants grow in bogs…
Fetid Flowers
With names like Stinking Benjamin, Corpse Flower, and Skunk Cabbage; these flowers…
4 Millionth Specimen
With 7,800,000 specimens in our herbarium, reaching 4,000,000 specimens catalogued in our…
Daffodils are blooming!
It's springtime and the daffodils are blooming outside! In the herbarium, these…
Most Vibrant
Cabinet of CuriositiesWorks of Art
If we were to give yearbook superlatives to herbarium specimens, these would…
Old Man's Beard
This lichen grows as an epiphyte on trees. They require clean air,…
Discovering a Darwin Collection
Cabinet of CuriositiesSpecimen Stories
In the museum world, there's a sort of joke that you never…
The Lilac Collection
The lilacs are blooming here at the Garden, gracing us with their…
NY's Missing Species
When you think of a rare, endangered species, you may think of far-off…
Don't touch
Plants have evolved many ways to protect themselves, from growing barbs that…
Chock-full of chromosomes
Cabinet of CuriositiesFocus on Science
Behold this fern which has the highest recorded chromosome number of any living…
Astragalus osterhoutii, Osterhout milkvetch
Astragalus osterhoutii M. E. Jones (or Osterhout milkvetch) is an herbaceous plant known…
Elizabeth Britton and the Curly-Grass Fern
Specimen StoriesWomen in Science
Tucked away in an office drawer of NYBG’s Fern Curator, Robbin Moran,…
The Azalea Garden
Always a destination for Mother's Day, the Azalea Garden is a spring…
Milestones
Since its inception NYBG has focused on building an extensive and valuable herbarium…
Muhlenberg's Smile
Almost everyone can name an endangered charismatic megafauna. But most would be…
Britton's Chara
In the United States, there is no formal regulation for the endangered…
Granite outcrop specialists
Plants are amazing and can adapt to live in the most unlikely…
Kauai Digit Fern
The Kauai Digit Fern, or Doryopteris angelica, is a rare fern found in the forest on…
It's not easy being green
People might pass over these green specimens 'cause they're not standing out…
Being Loved To Death – A Third of…
As the many plants to be digitized in the Endless Forms project,…
Heard it through the grapevine
Vitis is the genus of one of the world’s favorite horticultural crop:…
The Biltmore Herbarium: Botany and America’s Largest Home
Biltmore, a Gilded Era mansion in Asheville, North Carolina, is America’s largest…
Typical: Gymnopilus pallidus
Some characters are altered in the drying process used to create herbarium specimens.…
Resurrecting from the Dead
I remember coming across Selaginella lepidophylla while imaging herbarium specimens for the…
Plants of Sítio Roberto Burle Marx
Roberto Burle Marx was an artist, a landscape architect and an early…