This following is part of the “Where Are They Now?”series featuring guest posts from former interns, volunteers, staff, and friends of BRIT. This month’s post is from former BRIT intern, Delany Baum. Delany interned with the Texas Plant Conservation Program in Summer and Fall 2019. In 2016, staff and students within the ecology department at the University of North Texas in Denton stared at a four-acre plot surrounding the engineering campus at Discovery Park and saw nothing but Bermuda grass. With an extensive background in urban conservation and restoration ecology, Dr. Jaime Baxter-Slye wanted to transform this empty field into a pollinator sanctuary of native North Central Texas plants. In May of that year, Baxter-Slye received funding from the We Mean Green Fund , a sustainability ini...

Resident Research Associate, Grace Lloyd Bascopé, talks about her summers in Blue Creek, Belize working on Flora of Belize & Maya Research Project.

Tiana F. Rehman, BRIT's Herbarium Collections Manager, tells us about the many collections that compose the Herbarium. This is the first interview of the Library's new Collection Lens series, which highlights collection managers from around the world across botanical libraries and herbaria as collections move into the future.

Imagine a herbarium of just under 400,000 plant specimens in cabinets with a corresponding botany library of 40,000 books lining the periphery, along the walls of the herbarium collection accessible to researchers working in the collection. This was the design of the SMU Herbarium and Library housed on the SMU campus before moving to BRIT in 1991.

Climb 1,000 stairs, learn 1,000 new words, see 1,000 new things, share 1,000 conversations These are all just some of the steps involved in discovering new plant species and understanding plant biodiversity – or at least they were on my most recent trip to Madagascar in search of strange and wonderful plant life. The idea of 1,000 ascensions came to me on the second day in the field, on our way to Manongarivo Special Reserve – a protected area, managed by Madagascar National Parks in northwest Madagascar. As we came closer to Manongarivo, my colleagues explained a little about the park. In Malagasy, Manongarivo literally means “go up one thousand times” which refers to low mountains and hills that make up this region. If you want to go to Manongarivo, you better be prepared to go up 1,000...

It was 1875, and John Muir was a busy man. He was already well-known for his journeys through central and northern California. His writing was published in newspapers and magazines around the country. But he still had time to help someone else. Portrait of John Muir in about 1880 (Credit: Taber and Boyd, Wikimedia) A colleague, John Redfield, wrote to Muir asking for specimens to add to his collection. John Muir wrote back in May of 1875 and promised to collect in a few weeks. True to his word, Muir collected plant specimens in the Sierra Nevada mountain range and sent them to Redfield for study later that year. They continued to correspond about the collections and other scientific pursuits for the next few years. Dryopteris arguta specimen collected in California by John Muir in 1875 Joh...

In December of 2019, BRIT Librarian participated in expedition two of the Plant Discovery In the Southern Philippines project.

In late 2018, the BRIT Philecology Herbarium received funds from the National Science Foundation Grant: “Endless Forms most beautiful and most wonderful” to digitize collections of species across 15 plant families that have unique adaptations and morphologies. These plants may live in extreme and highly specific environments that face elevated risks of extinction in the rapidly changing climate that we’re seeing today. Dozens of herbaria across the United States are digitizing their collections representing these peculiar families in an effort to aid in research about their evolutionary history, ecology, conservation tactics, and more. Some of the groups of plants that fall under this grant include epiphytes (such as orchids), succulents (cacti and some euphorbs), and carnivores! The carni...

Eula Whitehouse's field camera was recently gifted to BRIT Library by her family.

Ferns and lycophyte specimens in the BRIT herbarium. Many herbaria in the world are represented by curators and research communities that are very familiar with the character and content of their collections, but very few of these have access to accurate numbers and specimen inventories. Digitization funding is a game changer that will provide us with the means to better preserve the collections we hold in public trust. A digitized specimen is a tool that allows access to scientific vouchers and observations that span hundreds of years – an essential component to research that deals with past environmental change and future models. The Philecology Herbarium at the Botanical Research Institute is one of 36 herbaria and museums throughout the U.S. representing the Pteridopytes Collections Co...