Apr 22 2019
With 7,800,000 specimens in our herbarium, reaching 4,000,000 specimens catalogued in our database is a huge milestone - just over halfway there.
We are pleased to honor our lichen curator, James Lendemer, with the 4 millionth specimen - a type specimen of a new species of lichen, named after him: Lecanora lendemeri E. Tripp & C.A. Morse.
James himself has described many new species in this genus, a tricky group that are often sterile, lacking reproductive characters to help distinguish themselves from other closely related species. The lichen collection is also the portion of our herbarium that is growing rapidly - more than 10,000 new specimens a year - thanks to the tireless efforts of James and his colleagues.
Here's to the next 4 million!