History of the LSU Herbarium

Department of Biological Sciences, Baton Rouge, LA 

Founded in 1869, the Louisiana State University (LSU) Herbarium is the oldest collection of preserved plant specimens in the Gulf South and is the second largest collection of Louisiana plants. Originally composed entirely of specimens of vascular plants, it now also includes fine collections of lichens and fungi. In all, the LSU Herbarium contains ca. 180,000 specimens, with over 40,000 lichens (the largest lichen collection in the Gulf Region) and ca. 25,000 fungi (the second-largest collection of its kind in this region). The fungal collection is rich in Neotropical wood-decaying fungi, and Gulf Coast lichens are well represented. The LSU Herbarium is an essential resource for research, teaching, and public service, including the study of the wildflowers of Louisiana, the ecology of Louisiana marshes, the medicinal plants of the Gulf South, the environmental impact assessment in Louisiana, and the conservation of tropical rain forests.

A revitalization of the herbarium in the 1990's was helped by several events. In 1991, the herbarium received a large grant from the State of Louisiana to computerize the collections, and this work is an ongoing project. Dr. Tom Wendt (now at U of Texas), specialist in Mexican rain forest trees, joined the herbarium in the same year as Associate Director, the first full-time Ph.D. level herbarium staff member. Dr. Mark Mayfield (now at Kansas State), and subsequently Dr. Diane Ferguson, continued as associate directors at LSU. Commissioned by LSU in 1976 and completed in 1991, a series of watercolor drawings by the internationally known botanical artist Margaret Stones of England commemorated the bicentennial year. Lowell Urbatsch, Director of the LSU Herbarium, provided the botanical text. This work was supported by many local Louisianians and carried out in conjunction with LSU Herbarium personnel. In 1992, the Clair Brown Memorial Endowment was established, being named after the long-time Director of the Herbarium and author of Wildflowers of Louisiana and Adjoining States, Trees of Louisiana, and many other botanical works. This fund is growing through private contributions and provides income entirely for herbarium use. The Herbarium also boasts a rapidly growing herbarium library which includes the very fine collections donated by Clair Brown, Bernard Lowy, Shirley Tucker, Samuel Meyers, and Florence Givens. The herbarium library is complemented by important botanical works in the LSU Middleton Library, including many rare works in the outstanding Special Collections housed in the adjacent Hill Memorial Library.

The LSU Historical Collections

Due to its long history, the LSU Herbarium includes many old and historically valuable plant specimens in the vascular plant collection. Hundreds of specimens collected by Americus Featherman, the founder of the LSU Herbarium who botanized widely in Louisiana during the period from 1869 to 1872, are invaluable in documenting the plant life of our state just after the U.S. Civil War. Many other nineteenth-century specimens are present -- some at least as old as 1828 from Texas by the famous Belgian botanist Jean Louis Berlandier and, from Louisiana, collections dating back to at least 1843 by William Carpenter from the Felicianas. Also in the herbarium of that era are Texas and Louisiana specimens made by John Riddell (who published the first list of Louisiana plants) and Joseph Joor. Collections in the herbarium from other parts of the United States and Mexico made in the 1840's and 1850's include those by famous botanists Charles Short, Charles Mohr, and Arthur Schott. There are two important but more recent Louisiana collections of historical relevance. The hundreds of specimens collected by E.C. Wurzlow in the Houma area from 1913 to 1918 and the equally numberous specimens of Brother Arsène (Arsène Brouard) of St. Paul's College (Christian Brothers) in Covington collected mostly in St. Tammany Parish in 1919 to 1922 give broader picture of change in Louisiana flora into the early twentieth century.

Historical Biography of Brother Arsène Brouard
(Arizona State University website)

In 1992, herbarium personnel started a project to separate out the historical material (probably about 3,300 specimens) from the main herbarium. The phases and objectives were:
1) review the entire herbarium sheet by sheet and remove specimens which are deemed to be of historical importance (including all nineteenth-century material from Louisiana and adjoining states);
2) determine for each specimen who collected it, where, and when and attach new labels; and
3) repair and strengthen specimen mountings. Today, the historical collection is organized and stored separately from the main collection where it will remain available for study yet receive less wear and tear than the specimens in the main herbarium.

LSU Herbarium accessions 100,000th vascular plant specimen

The Louisana State University Herbarium of the Department of Biological Sciences prepared and accessioned their 100,000th vascular plant specimen and had a celebration October 8, 2001. Leigh Rhodes, a Chancellor's Aide student, prepared the specimen for the herbarium. The specimen was collected in 1990 by Jose Lavalle from Teznekht, Morocco, and is an unusual member of the nightshade family, Withania adpressa. The plant was acquired in an ongoing exchange of specimens with the Jardin Botanique National de Belgique in Meise, Belgium.

According to the herbarium director, Dr. Lowell Urbatsch, the vascular plant herbarium has added ca. 55,000 collections since his arrival in 1975, more than doubling it's size since its establishment in 1869. In addition to the vascular plants, the herbarium houses the moss, lichen, and fungal collections of LSU, altogether totalling about 165,000 specimens.

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