Million Mark in Sight as Herbarium Collection Adds 32,000 New Plants

More than 58,000 plants, collected in all parts of the world, were received during the past year at the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University, Merritt L. Fernald 1B, director, has announced in his annual report.

Of these more than 32,000 mounts were added to the organized collection, bringing the total at the herbarium to approximately 950,000. Based on the private collections of Asa Gray, pioneer American botanist, the Herbarium is the world's finest collection of North and South American flore, representing more than a hundred years of continuous, carefully directed growth.

Larger Building

The herbarium has grown so large that the present building may soon have to be enlarged to accomodate the increasing collections, Professor Fernald said.

Field parties went out from the herbarium during the year to make collections in Virginia, Cuba, Canada, and Alaska.

World-Wide

From many parts of the world, field collections were presented to the herbarium, as follows: 249 ferns of Cuba: 118 plants of Colombia; 24 rare species secured on Arctic expeditions; 459 plants of Del Norte Country, California; three isotypes of new srectes; 237 plants of Hawaii; 42 rare plants of Indiana; 30 plants of Costa Rica; 1761 plants from Brazil; 45 local or critical plants of California; 99 plants illustrating critical Flora of the Aleutian Islands; 292 plants of Jamaica and the southern United States; 3087 critical herbaceous plants, chiefly of South America and Mexico; 13 plants newly discovered in Maine; a most important series of 2609 plants of eastern arctic Canada; 698 finely preserved and botanically significant plants of the alpine areas of Alaska; 330 plants from Maine; 22 critical ferns of Florida; 171 rarer plants of the Delaware Peninsula; and 2434 of the rarer plants of Quebec and Ontario.

In the same period 265 series, totaling 26, 732 duplicates, were sent in exchange to 90 other herbaria in 22 different countries. During the year 68 loans of approximately 6000 technically important specimens were sent out for critical study by specialists in this country and in Argentina, Britain, Germany, Holland and Sweden.