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Changeover
Ada Hayden Herbarium gains 230,000 specimens from the University
of Iowa
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This summer's acquisition of 230,000 dried and pressed plant specimens
by the Ada Hayden Herbarium was a welcome addition to Lynn Clark, professor
of ecology, evolution and organismal biology and director of the Hayden
Herbarium.
But there is another important addition to the herbarium facilities that
Clark is also excited about.
Work concluded this summer on a new storage system that allows the specimens
to be placed on moveable tracks that will allow an increased capacity
of almost 40 percent.
Even with the additional 230,000 specimens from the University of Iowa,
Clark says the current facilities should be adequate for the foreseeable
future.
"At our current rate of plant acquisition we should be good for the
next 25 years" she said.
Unless that is another large group of plant specimens comes the Hayden
Herbarium's way. That was the case this summer after the University of
Iowa closed down its herbarium operations.
"This is a pretty exciting opportunity," Clark said. "Their
plant specimens are a welcome addition to our collection."
The University of Iowa collection includes bryophyte (moss) specimens
and other Iowa plants from the eastern part of the state. Clark says while
there was some duplication in the specimens, the combination of the Iowa
and Iowa State collections will now provide virtually a complete coverage
of plant diversity of the state and almost a complete representation of
each species.
"It's exciting to have all of this collection available in one place
and make it accessible to the people of the state of Iowa," she said.
Duplicate plant specimens are being cataloged by Clark and Deb Lewis,
Hayden Herbarium curator. Clark estimates that approximately 10,000 specimens
of Iowa plants will be sent back to the University of Iowa as a reference
collection.
As the Hayden Herbarium was accepting the University of Iowa collection,
it shipped out a portion of its own collection to a more suitable location.
The J.P. Anderson Collection is one of the world’s largest collections
of Alaskan plants.
Anderson personally collected 11,000 specimens and accumulated thousands
of others through gift and exchange. He bequeathed the collection to Iowa
State in the 1950s.
"It seemed a little strange to have a major collection of Alaskan
plants here in Iowa," Clark said.
An agreement was worked out with the University of Alaska-Fairbanks where
the Anderson Collection is now on permanent loan.
"Fairbanks has a nice herbarium and the collection will stay there
as long as they are willing and able to maintain it," she said.
Even without the Alaskan flora collection, the Hayden Herbarium is one
of the largest in the nation. Clark says it ranks as the 12th largest
collection at a college or university and 20th among the nation’s 600
herbariums.
The current general collection of the Hayden Herbarium includes flowering
plants (angiosperms), conifers (gymnosperms), ferns (pteridophytes), mosses
and liverworts (bryophytes), algae and lichens, fungi, Iowa’s vascular
plants, grasses from throughout the Western Hemisphere, and legumes from
North America.
"Some of the Hayden collections are very important," Clark said.
"We have the biggest collection of Iowa plants and fungi in the world."
Lynn Clark
Around LAS
September 20 to October 3, 2004
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