Biology Department Herbarium - Texas A&M University
http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/FLORA/biolherb/tamuhome.htm
The nearly 50,000 dried plant specimens now housed at the Texas A&M Biology Department Herbarium represent 10-fold increase since its initiation as a departmental facility in 1975. Specimens maintained by this unit are about evenly divided between vouchers associated with research publications and accessioned, faculty/student field collections that document the native flora. The latter, centered on the vascular plants of Brazos and adjacent counties, includes material resulting from M.S.-level county floras (Robertson, Madison) and projects focused on local rare or endangered species (Spiranthes parksii, Thalictrum texanum), unusual habitats of central Texas, and public natural areas. The main collection, maintained by departmental Herbarium Botanist Monique Reed, is housed in a large compactor unit in the herbarium, whereas a smaller assemblage is maintained as a student reference collection in the nearby Plant Systematics Teaching Laboratory.
The Herbarium, as an instructional support facility, has developed an extensive web interface to specimen data and teaching materials via a series of course-related Internet sites. This work, accomplished through collaborative interaction with an interdisciplinary research group on campus (Texas A&M Bioinformatics Working Group), has involved exploration of web-based systems for presentation of lecture and laboratory supplements, study aids, digital field trips, and enhanced student/instructor comunications.
The Plant Resources Center, The University of Texas
at Austin
http://www.utexas.edu/ftp/depts/prc/
The Plant Resources Center (PRC) of The University of Texas, the largest herbarium in the southwestern United States, contains over 1.1 million specimens. Founded in the 1890’s, this collection houses the largest and oldest assemblage of Texas plant specimens in the state. Over 350,000 Texas collections provide extensive floristic representation from all 254 counties. The Plant Resources Center serves as the foundation and repository of specimens for numerous books and studies, notably, The Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas by D.S. Correll and M.C. Johnston, the state’s only written flora. As one of its many public service activities, the Plant Resources Center aids the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in it efforts to locate and catalog endangered species and on its vegetation surveys of the state parks, and also serves as a depository for specimens resulting from these studies. An active research institution with 18 graduate students, the University of Texas herbarium is growing by over 13,000 specimens per year.
The Plant Resources Center also has the largest collection of Mexican plant specimens outside of Mexico. For this reason, CONABIO (Commission for the Understanding and Use of Biodiversity of Mexico) has granted funds to computerize the PRC’s Mexican collections. To date, this collaborative project with the National Herbarium of Mexico has databased over 31,000 Mexican plant collections from the University of Texas herbarium.
Southwest Texas State University Herbarium
The SWT Herbarium is a small (ca. 18,000 specimens) but rapidly growing facility that has focused on the flora of Texas since its establishment in 1984. Herbarium holdings include extensive recent collections from central, southern and coastal areas of the state, voucher specimens from floristic studies at a number of state parks and natural areas (e.g., Seminole Canyon, Devil's Sinkhole, Kickapoo Caverns, Colorado Bend, McKinney Roughs), vouchers from several endangered plant surveys in east Texas and the Rio Grande Valley (such as the large-fruited sand verbena, ashy dogweed and Johnston's frankenia), and a growing collection of aquatic plants. Exchange programs with more than a dozen other Texas herbaria have enabled us to build a solid representative collection of Texas plants that serves as an important resource for the five faculty members and approximately fifteen graduate students in the Botany Program at SWT.
Digital Biodiversity - The Flora of Texas Project (010366-0041-1999)
- Additional Materials Page 8