Services
In addition to the services provided by our core collections (including the library and slide collection) the Intermountain Herbarium offers other botanical services.
Voucher Curation Services
One of the Herbarium’s most important services is to act as a repository for the specimens that provide the foundation for individual research projects. Ecologists investigating the interactions among species, evolutionary biologists using plants to understand fundamental principles of how evolution happens, conservation biologists looking at the efficacy of different revegetation strategies, taxonomists interested in the differences among species—these researchers all base their work on specific plants and it is important for subsequent researchers to be able to determine exactly what plants were used in a given research project. The Herbarium provides this service by curating specimens of the plants that individual scientists used in their research, allowing future researchers to build on past studies (and to replicate their results). If you are interested in vouchering your specimens at the Intermountain Herbarium, we want to help! Reach out to us and see our guidelines for collectors [link to the “UTC_specimenCollectionAndDonationProtocol.pdf” file currently in the images_etc directory]. We can even help you with equipment for collecting and pressing botanical specimens.
Plant Identification Stations
The Herbarium has a sweet suite of plant identification stations, each equipped with a dissecting microscope and identification tools (pokers, rulers, etc) and positioned adjacent to our Utah Plants Reference Collection and our library of floras and other botanical references. Drop-ins are welcome and if you want a taste of these facilities, come to a PIP session [link to the PIP subsection, below]!
Plant Identification Services
Herbarium staff are available to assist with plant identifications, on a case-by-case basis. Questions about individual plants from members of the public are typically responded to same-day. For larger requests, or requests related to commercial activities, contact the Associate Curator for options.
Digitization Support Services
The Intermountain Herbarium has extensive experience with digitizing herbarium specimens and making their images and label data available online, through the Symbiota platform. We are happy to advise other institutions interested in digitization and can also enter into contracts to digitize specimens for institutions that don’t have access to an imaging station.
PIP: Plant Identification Practice! Or is it People Investigating Plants?
PIP is a weekly herbarium open house: if you are interested in practicing your plant identification skills or generally nerding out about botany, please come by! The Director and Associate Curator are available during PIP to help with the often-intimidating art of using taxonomic keys and with general plant ID skills. The PIP schedule varies semester-to-semester—contact the Director to be added to the mailing list and receive updates.
Educational Services
The Herbarium is available to support classroom education and other educational activities, particularly for areas related to botany or museum studies. If you think we might be able to help you with your educational plans, please reach out!
Silica-dried Material Archive
Specimens collected by the Director or Associate Curator are additionally represented by a silica-dried fragment. This sample is available for molecular analyses (particularly, for DNA extraction—keeping these samples dry, with silica gel desiccant, allows them to be used for high-quality DNA extractions long after the specimen was collected). Researchers interested in our samples can see what is available at: https://fernlab.biology.duke.edu/ (a material request form is available here).