For Visitors

Upon arrival:

Please check with one of the Herbarium staff, who will be available to orient you. We strongly suggest that you make an appointment ahead of time to ensure that a staff member can meet you upon your arrival.

Please sign the guest book.

No smoking, food, or beverages are permitted inside the collections areas.

In order to control herbarium pests, incoming specimens to the Vascular Herbarium are frozen for seven days or more. Users of the collection who wish to bring specimens into the herbarium must contact herbarium staff in advance so that the collections can be frozen prior to arrival. If this is not possible, please contact a member of the herbarium staff for other arrangements.

Use of the Collections:

Herbarium cases should be closed when not in use.

Specimen folders should be kept horizontal when removing them from the cases. Herbarium sheets should be handled with the mounted side up and supported underneath.  Do not turn over like pages in a book.

Material such as pollen, leaves, and wood must not be removed from herbarium specimens without prior written consent; refer to the Destructive Sampling Policy for details. Dissections or loose plant fragments should be put into packets attached to the sheet. Additional packets are available from the staff.

Visiting specialists are encouraged to annotate specimens using permanent ink on annotation labels. Pens and labels are available from the herbarium staff. Please provide the name and affiliation of the investigator and the date of annotation. Clip annotation labels to packets or sheets and the staff will glue them. Alternatively, leave the determinations on the top of the stack of specimens and the staff will make and attach the annotation labels.

Specimens that you wish to have sent on loan should be set aside and labeled with your name and institutional address. A formal written request for the loan must be received from the director of your herbarium before the loan will be sent.

A collection of botanical references is maintained in the main herbarium area. Please do not remove these books without notifying the staff. For long-term visitors with lab or office space in the BioSci Building, place a sign out card with your name, date and office number. Borrowed books should be returned within two weeks. Please sign out the books using the notebooks in room 265 (vascular plants) and room 373A (lichens and bryophytes).

Visitors are asked to adhere to the same destructive sampling policy that applies to our loan program.