Resources

Visitors to the Intermountain Herbarium are welcome to use our facilities during business hours (Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm). We recommend contacting us prior to arrival to ensure staff are available to assist due to the potential of conflicting schedules with teaching, outreach, field research, or traveling.

Facilities available to visitors include dissecting microscopes, our satellite library that includes floras, ID resources, and a broad array of other botanical references (all searchable through the USU Merrill-Cazier Library), standard dissecting tools, plant dryer, topographic maps, and plant press materials. Assistance with information regarding collection permits can also be provided. 

Workshops on Plant identification Practice (PIP [link to that section of the website]) are offered weekly during the semester, please contact the Director to be added to the PIP email list. Researchers, private consultants, and agency personnel needing assistance with identification of field specimens are welcome to attend our U.F.O. (Unidentified Flowering Objects) days. Whereas PIP is focused on building ID skills, at U.F.O. days we will do the identifying for you (within certain limits…).

If you can’t make it to us, tag us in your observation on iNaturalist (@crothfels; @mugiwara_kris)!

PLANT COLLECTIONS AND PLANT COLLECTING

Let Us Voucher Your Specimens

The Intermountain Herbarium’s core mission is to house, curate, and disseminate plant biodiversity data, i.e., plant specimens and their associated collection information. By doing so we document that diversity (for example, we can accession specimens that underlie specific research projects or that demonstrate the occurrence of particular species in particular places) and provide an invaluable bank of data for future research and conservation activities. See our Contributors’ Guide [link to file currently at: UTC_admin_shared\UTC webpage\images_etc_toLinkTo\How to templates and images\UTC_specimenCollectionAndDonationProtocol.pdf] for more information.

Plant Collecting

collection

Well-made plant collections last for hundreds of years when curated in collections like the Intermountain Herbarium and form an invaluable bank of data for future research, education and conservation activities. By accessioning specimens with us, you’ll not only provide support for your own work, you’ll also be contributing to this important resource that now comprises nearly 300 thousand specimens—your specimens have the potential to contribute to botanical study, education, and conservation in ways that are impossible to imagine in the present. 

In addition, collecting plant specimens is a powerful way to learn more about botanical diversity, providing individuals with the opportunity to closely examine individual plants and to compare among different varieties.

However, not all specimens are created equal and specimen curation is a time-consuming activity. It is important to ensure that your specimens are of the highest quality in order to maximize their utility.

Resources for Plant Collecting



HERBARIA AND RELATED RESOURCES


Other herbaria of the Intermountain Region

Specimen portals

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  • intermountainbiota.org - Intermountainbiota is a network of SYMBIOTA portals (such as SEINET, OregonFlora, CNH, SERNEC, etc.), and brings together data from hundreds of thousands of herbarium specimens from herbaria all across the world.
  • mycoportal.org - Portal for collection records retaining to higher fungi (excluding lichens). 
  • lichenportal.org - Portal for collection records retaining to lichenized fungi.
  • bryophyteportal.org - Portal for collection records retaining to bryophytes (also known as mosses, liverworts, and hornworts).
  • www.gbif.org - GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, is the primary aggregator of the metadata associated with natural history collections. Unlike SYMBIOTA portals, however, GBIF does not provide images of specimens.

Herbarium curation

  • See this video series for a behind-the-scenes tour of how herbaria curate plant specimens.

BOTANICAL GROUPS AND SOCIETIES


USU Botanical Groups

Other Botanical Groups

collection

Other Botanical Resources

  • Reporting Noxious Weeds: There are ~50 known vascular plant species in the state that are considered noxious by the Utah Department of Agriculture. Reporting populations that are established or new occurrences is critical in removal of these species to prevent further destruction of the native biodiversity. By submitting observations directly to the Department of Agriculture through EDDmapS, observations are directly sent to the state weed management department! USU extension has also compiled a guide: Noxious Weed Field Guide for Utah.
  • Rare plant guides: In Utah, there are roughly 290 species of plants that are considered to be rare. Currently, there are two field guides relating specifically to rare plants of Utah. One done by the Utah Native Plant Society (found here) and another done by the Department of Natural Resources (found here).
  • Other Resources for Plant identification
    • Learn how to key plants with this Dichotomous key - how to guide or stop by during PIP! [ <-hyperlink to pip section located in services]
    • Miscellaneous treatments can be found in this Keybase along with FNA vol. 24 & 25
  • A short discussion of the rare ferns of Utah, with some Cystopteris and polyploidy information snuck in

External Resources

These have been divided into Utah, Intermountain Region, North America, Global, and Digital Libraries.

Utah

Intermountain Region

North America (primarily USA)

Global

Botanical Digital Libraries

Guides (How To)

Vouchers and Specimen Preparation

  1. Vouchers and tissues intended for genomic work:
    1. Best practices (Smithsonian)
    2. Video of collecting samples for DNA
  2. Plant specimens for Herbarium (University of Florida)

Classes of Type Specimens

Holotype: The person(s) first proposing the name stated which specimen was to be regarded as the type specimen. Current rules require that one state exactly which specimens one means and identify the herbarium in which it has been deposited.

Lectotype: The person(s) who first proposed the name did not designate a type specimen (this was legal prior to 1958) so someone else did so later. There are (as you might expect) strong recommendations about how one selects a lectotype. To find out more, consult the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature.

Neotype: Sometimes holotypes and lectotypes are lost or destroyed. The most notorious instance of this was the destruction of all the types in the Berlin herbarium by allied bombing during World War II. When a holotype or lectotype ihas been destroyed or lost, a replacement specimen can be designated as the type specimen. The replacement type is called a newtype. And yes, there are some recommendations as to how neotypes should be selected.

Epitypes: Sometimes it is found that the existing type of a name does not have the features needed to distinguish it from other species. This happens sometimes when the original type specimen was a drawing (no longer legal except for fossils) or when it was not appreciated that what was being called a single spcies is actually two or more different species. In these circumstances, an epitype can be designated for the existing name. It must be consistent with the original use of the name. This then permits other specimens to be selected as the types for other names. Obviously, the specimen selected as an epitype should show all the characteristics currently used to distinguish the taxon involved from the taxa with which it had been confused.

Syntypes: In the bad old days when it was not necessary to list an individual specimen as a type, many taxonomists simply listed several specimens that they considered should be called by their new name. These specimens all have equal standing so far as being types are concerned and are called syntypes. Syntypes are sometimes called cotypes.

Paratypes: If a taxonomist lists several specimens as representing his new name but designates one of these specimens as the holotype, the non-holotype specimens are paratypes.

Isotypes: These are simply duplicates of a type specimen. They become important if the holo-, lecto-, neo-, or epitype is destroyed because they are the first choice as a replacement type (a neoneotype? theoretically possible).

Topotypes: Specimens collected from the same location as a type specimen. They have no nomenclatural significance.

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