University-led Herbariums Throughout the Intermountain West

This tour explores five university-led herbariums within the Intermountain West. The sites within the collection will provide a narrative story of each herbarium, describing their unique beginnings, a diverse range of focus, and their impacts on the world. Herbariums serve as scientific institutions dedicated to preserving and researching plants to advance knowledge in all types and sub-categories of plants. The public can commonly recognize them as archives for plants, requiring collectors to include detailed documentation for each find. Most herbariums fund further research on the subjects, making them storehouses of artifacts and a critical source of information. Their extensive documentation of each specimen makes it a remarkable place of education and research. Visitors to the herbarium archives can journey through history, witnessing the discovery of plants, their diverse uses, and their evolution, providing insights into the future of these plants.

No two herbariums are the same because they are located in various establishments, each with a different goal. The public can find the plant archives in museums, usually in natural history museums dedicated to displaying the history of natural resources. Universities also create herbariums to further academic research, often with specific regional or plant-type focuses. Lastly, herbariums can also function independently as private or non-profit, aiming to make plant education and research accessible to the public. These establishments may include a library with ample information and schedule public events to encourage learning about flora-related topics. However, shared throughout each establishment is their storage. Each will have room or multiple rooms with rows of cabinets or various storage units dedicated to preserving plant specimens.

Preserving plants is also similar among the institutions. There are a couple of methods to choose from, such as conserving them in liquid or freeze-drying. However, most herbariums use the pressed-and-dry method. In this process, collectors gather samples onto thin sheets and place them into a pressing machine between absorbent paper. The pressed pieces are placed in a folder and filed into an airtight storage unit. This seemingly simple strategy has effectively preserved samples over a hundred years old.