An herbarium is more than just a collection of dried plants. Plants that are collected from natural habitats, pressed, dried, and processed in the herbarium for long-term preservation and storage do establish the foundation of herbarium collections. However, each specimen has associated data about where and when it was collected, who collected it, and other information on the plant’s ecology. We preserve and curate both parts of the specimen in globally shared databases. Importantly, both parts—physical and digital—are required for a sample to be scientifically useful.
Each specimen represents a single individual plant collected at one moment in time and capture information on what the plant looked like, its genetic diversity, and molecular composition.
Herbaria are time capsules that capture change, enabling education, conservation, research.
My goals as Director of the L.H. Bailey Hortortium Herbarium at Cornell University are to promote education, evolve the collection, and expand research capacity.
Please see more information about our collection below. You can contact me with questions or ideas for using this resource for creative endeavors.
