National Old Stuff Day
In honor of National Old Stuff Day (March 2nd), the BRIT Herbarium wants to highlight one of our more interesting specimens from Oklahoma. Although not as old as the oldest illustrated flora from the early 1530s, some of BRIT’s oldest collections speak to the history of the Southern Great Plains. Herbarium specimen of Monarda punctata collected by J.W. Blankinship from Oklahoma in 1895. (Credit: BRIT Herbarium, J.W. Blankinship s.n., BRIT569198) Our specimen today is a collection of Monarda punctata, also known as Spotted Beebalm or Dotted Horsemint, a common sweet-scented perennial in North America. But our focus for today is the locality data for this specimen: Creek Nation, I.T. (Indian Territory). Many readers are likely familiar with the name for this First Peoples tribe, but “Indian...