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…
The Language of Flowers
Throughout time, people have assigned meaning to flowers, and many cultures have…
Jeanne Baret
CollectorsWomen in ScienceExpeditions
Jeanne Baret was the first woman ever to circumnavigate the globe, but…
Before & After: P. F. Zika 28277
The unmounted herbarium specimen, as it arrived at the garden in the…
Newspaper time capsule: B. Maguire 23559
A trip to the field isn't always necessary to describe a new…
The Lemmons: Partners in Botany
Sara Plummer met John Gill Lemmon in 1876 when he came to…
Becoming a mountain woman
Marie Mooar spent a lot of time in the wilds of western…
Art Cronquist's Hat
If you spend time looking at herbarium specimens collected by Arthur Cronquist,…
Weird & Wild Legumes
Cabinet of CuriositiesSpecimen Stories
Members of plant family Fabaceae (bean or legume family) produce a kind…
What is a type specimen?
When a researcher names a new species of algae, fungi, or plant,…
Typical: Hibiscadelphus stellatus
This type specimen is like a postcard from Hawaii reading "Wish you…
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…
George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver (1860s–1943) was an inventor, teacher, botanist, and mycologist (a…