Database for Studies of Biodiversity
The
New York Botanical Garden Herbarium is the foundation of the Garden's botanical
research program. The Herbarium holds a vast collection of preserved
plant specimens filed according to a standardized system of classification.
All plant groups--flowering plants, conifers, ferns, mosses, fungi, lichens,
liverworts, and algae--are represented by specimens collected in all parts of
the world, but the greatest strength of the Herbarium is the Americas, where
NYBG's research has been focused.
In only 100 years, NYBG has created one of the most active, best-curated, and most comprehensive herbaria in the world. Containing more than 6.5 million specimens, it is the fourth largest in the world, the largest in the Western Hemisphere, and is widely recognized as a research resource of international importance. Its collections are being augmented constantly by collections made by NYBG's staff and by gifts, purchases, and exchanges of specimens from other herbaria.
The NYBG Herbarium is also one of the most frequently used collections in the world. The specimens are studied by the Garden's staff, by visitors, and by researchers at other institutions via loans. The Herbarium supports the nearly 200 research projects of NYBG scientists and students, and more than 250 researchers come to NYBG each year to study the collections.
Herbarium specimens are used by botanists in two major types of projects --monographic studies and floristic surveys. In the former, a botanist studies all species in a chosen genus or family --determining which characteristics are shared by species and which are peculiar to a species and thus distinguish it from the others, determining the proper Latin name for each species (to facilitate accurate communication of information about species), providing a key with which unknown specimens can be identified, and discussing the evolutionary relationships of the species. In a floristic survey, a botanist studies all species in all families from a chosen geographic region, again providing keys with which to identify specimens, and discussing the habitat preferences and geographic distribution of each species. No modern floristic treatment or regional assessment of natural plant resources can be authoritatively developed for any major segment of the Americas without consultation of the NYBG Herbarium.
While
there is no substitute for fieldwork (observing and collecting the species
in their natural habitats), herbarium specimens provide much of the information
needed for both types of study. Characteristics of leaves, flowers, and
fruits can be observed and measured on the specimen. By examining the collection
locality and habitat notes on the labels of a series of specimens, a botanist
can determine the geographic distribution of a species and get an idea
of the kind of environment in which it grows. The date of collection can
be used to determine the months in which different species produce flowers
and fruits.
Properly named specimens are used as standards of comparison when unknown plants must be identified. For instance, botanists have used the NYBG Herbarium to identify plants for drug companies that screen them for potentially valuable drugs such as anti-carcinogens, to identify plants and mushrooms that are implicated in poisonings in the New York metropolitan area, as well as plant parts in various fibrous materials and drug samples examined by U.S. Customs Service to determine importation tariffs. The Herbarium is also consulted to study plants relevant to the land-use planning activities of the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the State Fish and Game Bureaus, and by the Brazilian, Ecuadorian, and Bolivian government departments, when they are setting policy on forest reserves, rangelands, and watersheds. In addition, systematists consult the collections to verify plants used by South American indigenous people for fish and arrow poisons, narcotics, medicines, noxious weeds and plants poisonous to livestock. Herbarium specimens are also used in public education courses at NYBG, in various museum exhibits, and in preparation by NYBG staff of popular books on botanical subjects, natural science, and gardening.
Today's extensive collections have accumulated around a core of the Columbia University Herbarium--600,000 specimens deposited in 1895. Included was the historically significant private herbarium of the noted botanist John Torrey, who had acquired specimens from most of the early explorations of the western United States.
The
primary source of collections is the staff's field expeditions. NYBG scientists
have begun the second century of expeditions to collect plants in poorly
understood areas of the West Indies, the United States, northern South
America, especially Amazonia, the Guayana Highland, and the Andes. Duplicate
specimens from NYBG expeditions are sent to herbaria throughout the world
in exchange for specimens from colleagues' expeditions, which augment the
size and scope of the NYBG Herbarium.
Over the years, as priorities changed at many universities and colleges, herbaria containing important research collections were no longer considered useful to their institutions. NYBG, as the steward of this nation's greatest herbarium, assumed responsibility for housing many of these collections and making their important material available for taxonomic research throughout the world. NYBG serves as the depository for specimens from 18 herbaria, including those of Princeton University, Wesleyan University, Hamilton College, DePauw University, Wabash College, and Wellesley College.
The Herbarium has a very important collection of over 125,000 "type" specimens. A type specimen is one that a botanist selected to represent a species when he or she named and described it for the first time. Types are added to the Herbarium when NYBG staff and others describe species new to science and when acquired herbaria containing types of already described species are deposited at NYBG.
When properly cared for, specimens can last hundreds of years and continue to provide information to succeeding generations of botanists and others interested in plants. They constitute the principal resource for documenting the diversity of plant species throughout the world and the changes in geographic distribution of species due to global changes and habitat alterations. For example, a comparison of specimens of lichens collected in the New York City area in the 1870s with today's collections documents the environmental degradation and subsequent partial recovery in the metropolitan area. At a time when the public is becoming more aware of environmental issues, the herbaria of the world, and especially that of NYBG, become ever more important resources.