The University of Minnesota Herbarium,
A look at the preservation of plants
Saturday, March 14, 2009, 1:00 to 3:00 PM

Join us on a tour of the University of Minnesota Herbarium where we will learn about the past, present, and future of the herbarium and learn how to prepare plant specimens. This field trip will be led by Tim Whitfeld, PhD Candidate in the Department of Plant Biology.

The herbarium houses over 600,000 samples of vascular plants from all over the world with some 160,000 specimens collected from Minnesota alone. This collection is considered one of the very best in regards to the historic flora of the Upper Midwest.

Older collections at the Herbarium include circumboreal, arctic, Pacific Island, early Amazonian, early California, and Asia flora. Currently the collections are growing with specimens received from the work the Minnesota DNR has conducted with the County Biological Survey as well as the tropical research being conducted by George Weiblen and his assistant in Papua New Guinea.

We will meet outside of the Bio Science Building at the main entrance near the corner of Gortner Ave and Buford Ave just before 1:00 PM. Parking will be along Gortner Ave (parking meters) and nearby parking lots.