From Plant Press, Vol. 13, No. 2 from April 2010.
By Conrad V. Morton† and William L. Stern†
Editor’s note: In honor of the 100th birthday of the National Museum of Natural History, this issue of The Plant Press looks back on the history of the U.S. National Herbarium. We lead this issue with a reprint of C.V. Morton and W.L. Stern’s 1966 article “The United States National Herbarium,” from Plant Science Bulletin 12(2): 1-4 (a publication of the Botanical Society of America, Inc.). Footnotes from the original appear as “CVM”, in addition to footnotes for clarification by Alan Whittemore (AW) and Gary Krupnick (GK). An updated history that will clarify these points further is being prepared by Laurence Dorr and Alan Whittemore.
The United States National Herbarium dates back almost to the foundation of the Smithsonian Institution in 1846. Collections of plants resulting from various early government expeditions were first deposited in the National Institute, named originally in 1840 as the National Institution for the Promotion of Science. Later these plants were turned over to the newly founded Smithsonian. Of particular interest among these were the large collections of the U.S. South Pacific Exploring Expedition, under the command of Lt. Charles Wilkes, U.S.N., which formed the real basis for a national herbarium. The earliest expeditions sponsored in part by the Smithsonian Institution itself included the explorations of Charles Wright in Texas and New Mexico in 1848.[1] The early Smithsonian plant collections, together with those gathered during government-sponsored expeditions to the new West, were turned over to Asa Gray, a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution and Professor of Botany at Harvard University, and John Torrey, Professor of Botany at Columbia College. The assembled botanical collections were in the actual custody of Torrey and were kept at Columbia College in New York City.[2]
The Smithsonian assisted with all the U.S. Government exploring expeditions,[3] among others those of Emory, Whipple, King, Gunnison, Pole, Stevens, Hayden, and Powell. Especially noteworthy were the botanical collections of Charles Wright undertaken in conjunction with the U.S. North Pacific Exploring Expedition under the command of Ringgold and Rodgers which provided plant specimens from the Bering Straits, Japan, China, Hong Kong, and elsewhere.[4] A great many botanical papers resulting from these expeditions were published in the reports of the U.S. Railroad Surveys. The Smithsonian Institution itself published several important monographs dealing with plants from these explorations, namely, Asa Gray’s “Plantae Wrightianae Texano-neo-mexicanae” (1853-1854), John Torrey’s “Plantae Frémontianae” (1854), and especially Professor William Henry Harvey’s “Nereis Boreali-Americana,” the first general account of our marine algae and still a fundamental reference work.
In 1868, only a few years before his death, Torrey decided that he could no longer retain custody of the herbarium. In the absence of suitable quarters and staff in the Smithsonian building in Washington, D.C., the first Secretary, Joseph Henry, made arrangements that the Smithsonian collections be deposited with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which had been amassing a working collection of herbarium specimens for the use of its personnel.[5]
Some years later the noted paleobotanist Lester F. Ward began gathering another collection of plants in the U.S. National Museum[6] for use in comparing living plants with fossil materials for the purpose of identification of the latter and also because of his interest in the local Washington area flora. It is of interest to note in this connection that in 1881 the Smithsonian Institution published Ward’s “Guide to the flora of Washington and vicinity.” Ward was given the title of Honorary Curator of Recent Plants at the Smithsonian Institution and later was named Honorary Associate in Paleobotany, a position he held until his death in 1913.
Spencer F. Baird, the second Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, was concerned about maintaining two herbaria in Washington. Because of this and his personal desire to establish a great museum in the Capital, he made arrangements for returning to the Smithsonian the plant collections that had been turned over to the Department of Agriculture by Secretary Henry and also to bring along the assembled Agriculture specimens.[7] Thus was formed the U.S. National Herbarium,[8]a joint project of the U.S. National Museum, under the Smithsonian Institution, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Frederick Vernon Coville, Chief Botanist of the Department of Agriculture, was appointed Honorary Curator of the National Herbarium, March 28, 1893. He retained this post until his death in 1937. In 1894, Joseph Nelson Rose was made Assistant Curator of the National Herbarium and thus became the first, full-time, professional botanist associated with the Smithsonian Institution.[9] The next year, C.L. Pollard was appointed Assistant Curator and served in this capacity until 1903. At the time of the union which finally took place July 1, 1896, the National Herbarium contained an estimated 250,000 specimens.
In 1899 William Ralph Maxon was appointed Aid in the Division of Plants; he subsequently became its first Curator following Coville’s death in 1937.[10] Maxon was chiefly responsible for building up the National Herbarium to its present position among the herbaria of the world. Several other botanists were associated with the Museum in its early years, notably Joseph H. Painter, a promising young botanist appointed as Aid in 1904. Painter drowned while swimming in the Potomac River at Plummer’s Island in 1908. Others, who subsequently made their names elsewhere, were LeRoy Abrams (Assistant Curator, 1905-1906), E.O. Wooton (Assistant Curator, 1910), and Homer D. House (Assistant Curator, 1905). Also to be mentioned is the talented botanical artist F.A. Walpole who was with the herbarium for a number of years and died in 1904; many of Walpole’s beautiful paintings and drawings are still maintained by the Museum. Associated with the herbarium was the controversial figure of E.S. Steele, highly regarded as the botanical editor of the Contributions from the U.S. National Herbarium,[11] but debatable as an authority on the taxonomy of Rubus, Liatris, and other “difficult” groups of plants.
In the early part of the century two prominent taxonomists were associated with the herbarium. The distinguished authority on North American plants, Edward L. Greene, resigned his position as Professor of Botany at Catholic University and became an Honorary Associate in Botany at the Smithsonian in 1904. At this time he was working on his monumental “The Landmarks of Botanical History,” the first volume of which was published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1909; since Greene’s death in 1915 the manuscript of the second volume has lain unpublished, but consideration is now being given to publishing it.[12] Captain John Donnell Smith was appointed an Honorary Associate in 1905, a position that he retained until his death in 1928. He was an authority on the flora of Central America and gave his extensive herbarium and library, which contained a fine collection of books on classical botany, to the Institution during his lifetime.
A close cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture has continued from the beginning. Several botanists did curatorial work on the collections, among them Orator Fuller Cook (Honorary Assistant Curator of Cryptogamic Collections, 1898-1948), Walter T. Swingle (Honorary Custodian of Algae, 1898-1951), G.T. Moore (Honorary Custodian of Lower Algae, 1902-1904), David G. Fairchild (Honorary Custodian of Lower Fungi, 1898-1953), and Bernhard E. Fernow (Honorary Custodian of the Section of Forestry, which was subsequently transferred from the Division of Plants). Many prominent botanists of Agriculture spent most of their time in the herbarium, among them William Edwin Safford (specialist on Annonaceae and on useful plants in general), Ivar Tidestrom (authority on the flora of Utah and Nevada), Thomas Kearney (authority on the flora of Arizona and on cotton and other economic plants), and Sydney F. Blake (the world authority on the Compositae).[13]
Paul Carpenter Standley was appointed Assistant Curator in 1909 and remained in Washington until 1928. Standley was the most prolific botanist ever associated with the National Herbarium. He was also an energetic curator, and the growth of the herbarium and development of early policies were largely influenced by Standley and Maxon. At the time of Standley’s departure to accept another post in 1928 the herbarium numbered about 1,000,000 specimens. Several large private herbaria had been received, notably those of John Donnell Smith, Charles Mohr, Otto Buchtien, S. Venturi, and the Biltmore Herbarium.[14] Sheets in these herbaria were mostly identified by distinctive embossed stamps. Another notable accession was the Willey Herbarium of lichens.
Following the retirement of Maxon in 1946, Ellsworth P. Killip was made Curator. Shortly thereafter, on the recommendation of a committee of distinguished botanists, the former Division of Plants of the Department of Biology in the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History became the Department of Botany with four divisions: Phanerogams, Grasses, Ferns, and Cryptogams. The formerly independent Section of Diatoms, established in 1912 with Albert Mann as Honorary Custodian, was united with the Division of Cryptogams, bringing along with it Mann’s magnificent diatom collection. Following the retirement of Killip in 1950, Jason R. Swallen was appointed Head Curator of the department.
Little attention had been paid to fungi in the early years, but in 1928 Curtis G. Lloyd donated his extensive mycological collections. In order to make them available to working mycologists, they were transferred to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and John A. Stevenson was appointed Honorary Curator. Later all the general fungus collections of the Smithsonian were lent to Agriculture to form the National Fungus Collections,[15]headed now by Chester R. Benjamin. The John A. Stevenson Mycological Library, one of the most complete specialized collections in the United States, is kept with the National Fungus Collections but is owned by the Smithsonian Institution.
In 1960 the wood collections of the Division of Agriculture and Wood Products of the Museum of History and Technology were transferred to the Department of Botany. These collections formed the basis for a Division of Woods, the name of which was changed to Division of Plant Anatomy in 1963. The division maintains the Archie F. Wilson Memorial Collection of Woods and the Harley H. Bartlett wood collections from Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico, British Honduras, and Guatemala.
In 1965 an active program of research in the algae was initiated, and to that end the marine herbarium of the Beaudette Foundation was immediately secured.
Presently William L. Stern is Chairman of the Department of Botany, which has grown from a staff of five in 1946 to the present staff of 16 professional botanists. There are also resident five appointed Research Associates who carry on their botanical activities in quarters provided by the department. They are considered part of the professional staff, although they are not paid by the Institution nor do they have regular curatorial assignments. Several Honorary Curators, connected with the National Fungus Collections, are responsible for maintaining liaison between this organization and the Smithsonian Department of Botany and for caring for the department’s fungus holdings.
As presently constituted, the Department of Botany is one of seven departments which comprise the Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution. Botany is divided into the five divisions mentioned above, four being set up along taxonomic lines, and Plant Anatomy. Each division is headed by a Curator-in-Charge and is staffed by Curators and Associate Curators. Herbarium-wide services are provided through the office of the Custodian of the Herbarium, a branch of the chairman’s office. Besides engaging in his own chosen research and publication, each member of the curatorial staff is expected to care for a part of the collections, carry out public service, cooperate with the botanical community, pursue a program of exploration for plants in the field, develop a museum exhibits program, and serve on intramural committees and advisory groups.
According to latest figures[16] plant specimens in the Department of Botany number well over 3,000,000 divided among the divisions about as follows: Phanerogams, 2,000,000; Ferns, 240,000; Grasses, 400,000; Cryptogams, 500,000; and Plant Anatomy, 45,000. The segregated Type Herbarium contains about 60,000 specimens: 42,000 phanerogams, 10,000 grasses, 3,500 ferns, and 4,500 cryptogams. These collections are housed in well over 2,000 storage cases.
From its beginnings the U.S. Department of Agriculture has had a special interest in grasses and other forage plants. Under the leadership of the eminent agrostologist George Vasey, a large grass collection was assembled which was increased by his successors Frederick Lamson-Scribner and Albert S. Hitchcock. In recognition of the size and importance of the grass collections which ultimately came to the Smithsonian, the Division of Plants formally set up a Section of Grasses on October 10, 1912, with Professor Hitchcock as Custodian. After the death of Hitchcock in 1935 Dr. Agnes Chase was appointed Honorary Custodian, a position she held actively until very near her death in 1963. During the reorganization of the Division of Plants in 1946 a separate Division of Grasses was established with Jason R. Swallen as Curator. The grass collections are the finest in the United States and rank with the best in the world. They are supplemented by the Hitchcock-Chase Agrostological Library, a magnificent collection of books and papers on grasses built up through the personal efforts and expenditures of Albert S. Hitchcock and Agnes Chase through many years. This library is maintained as a unit and has a small bequest for its support.
Many of the results of research undertaken in connection with the specimens in the U.S. National Herbarium have been printed in the Contributions from the U.S. National Herbarium, which were at first published by the Department of Agriculture beginning on July 16, 1890. Agriculture continued to publish the Contributions through the seventh volume, until July 1, 1902, when the U.S. National Museum assumed the responsibility for publication pursuant to an act of Congress. Throughout the years many important papers have been published in the Contributions, among them the “Botany of Western Texas,” by John M. Coulter; “Plant Life of Alabama,” by Charles Mohr; “Flora of Washington,” by C.V. Piper; “Flora of New Mexico,” by E.O. Wooten and P.C. Standley; “Trees and Shrubs of Mexico,” by P.C. Standley (recently reprinted); “Flora of the District of Columbia and Vicinity,” by A.S. Hitchcock and P.C. Standley; “Flora of Utah and Nevada,” by I. Tidestrom; and “Flora of the Panama Canal Zone,” by P.C. Standley. In addition to these floristic treatments, the Contributions have included monographs in all major plant groups and papers on subjects other than traditional taxonomy, as for instance, ethnobotany, genetics, ecology, plant anatomy, linguistics, plant geography, and bibliography. Among the notable contributors, in addition to those already mentioned, are George Vasey, Alexander W. Evans, Edwin B. Bartram, Joseph N. Rose, Per A. Rydberg, Albert S. Hitchcock, Frederick V. Coville, Orator F. Cook, William R. Maxon, Edward L. Greene, Henri Pittier, Nathaniel L. Britton, Frederick Lamson-Scribner, Elmer D. Merrill, Agnes Chase, William E. Safford, John Donnell Smith, Sydney F. Blake, Wilson Popenoe, William Trelease, Albert C. Smith, and William R. Taylor. The Contributions have 32 completed volumes and six additional under way.[17]
Space is regularly provided in the U.S. National Herbarium for six to eight investigators attached to the New Crops Research Branch, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Facilities are also made available, on a more or less regular basis, for botanists from the Forest Service, the National Arboretum, and the National Park Service who come to consult our specimens, use our library, and confer with our staff. Throughout the existence of the U.S. National Herbarium facilities have been afforded in Washington to visiting botanists for purposes of study and comparison. The guest register indicates that over 4,000 visits were made to the U.S. National Herbarium by botanists since 1930. Of these, almost 800 were from foreign nations, some botanists coming to the United States for the express purpose of studying our collections. Specimens are also made available to the botanical community on loan, and since 1949 over 350,000 specimens have been so treated. Well over a quarter-million herbarium specimens have been sent from the U.S. National Herbarium on exchange to institutions throughout the world since 1949.
For many years the department has supported activities leading to the preparation of an index to the species of grasses. George Vasey began this compilation sometime prior to 1900, and it has been continued over the years by Frederick Lamson-Scribner, Elmer D. Merrill, F.T. Hubbard, Cornelia D. Niles, and finally by Agnes Chase. Through the diligent work of Mrs. Chase, the compiled “Index to Grass Species” in three volumes was published by the G.K. Hall Company in 1962, one year before Mrs. Chase died.
The production of the Index Nominum Genericorum, a project of the International Association for Plant Taxonomy, has recently been transferred from Utrecht, Netherlands, to the United States. Financed by a grant from the National Science Foundation, the continuing project is housed in the Department of Botany of the Smithsonian Institution where facilities have been made available for a staff of botanical bibliographers headed by Ida K. Langman.
The U.S. National Herbarium was located on the third floor and in the towers of the original Smithsonian building until recently. The Division of Plant Anatomy had occupied quarters in the adjacent Arts and Industries building, the old National Museum building. In the spring of 1965, the Department of Botany and the assembled collections were moved to the new west wing of the Museum of Natural History. The fourth and fifth floors of this wing now occupied by the department comprise 50,000 square feet of air-conditioned specimen storage space surrounded by 60 rooms used for offices, laboratories, and libraries. The department maintains a well-equipped microtechnical laboratory and laboratory for the study of grass anatomy, as well as a photographic darkroom and department conference and seminar room. Paleobotanical laboratories and equipment are obtainable for use on an adjacent floor of the same wing through arrangements in effect with the Division of Paleobotany, a unit of the Department of Paleobiology. Study areas are available for visiting scientists and graduate students and botanists are encouraged to make use of the herbarium and library.
[1] Charles Wright supported himself by the sale of the herbarium material he collected. In order to make up large enough sets, specimens from different places were often combined under one number, with a label that only said Texas-New Mexico. Asa Gray suggested the collecting area to Wright; Gray was also the one who made up the sets, arranged their sale, and forwarded the money to Wright. See Susan McKelvey, Botanical Exploration of the Trans-Mississippi West 1790-1850 for details of Wright’s 1848-1849 trip. Smithsonian’s only connection with this expedition was that Gray published the final account in a Smithsonian series. AW
[2] Torrey had some Smithsonian material on loan, in addition to the many expedition specimens that had been given to him and were then in his personal herbarium (now at NY). The materials Gray worked on (for instance, Wright’s collections and the collections from Commodore Perry’s Japan expedition) were in the “actual custody” of Gray and are now at GH. AW
[3] These expeditions were under the Departments of the Navy and War. The collectors were employees of these departments, and the reports were prepared by independent scientists, often in exchange for receiving the specimens for their personal herbaria. AW
[4] Some of these explorations are described in S.F. Baird. 1855. Report on American explorations in the years 1853 and 1854. Appendix to the [Ninth Annual] Report of the Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Beverley Tucker, Senate Printer. Washington, D.C. CVM
[5] The Smithsonian material was never in Torrey’s custody. Torrey borrowed some specimens from Smithsonian, and Smithsonian paid him to mount herbarium specimens from 1860 to 1869, but the bulk of expedition material that Torrey worked on was in his private herbarium, which was sold to Columbia College; this material is now at NY.. Those expedition collections that were sent to Smithsonian in the 1850s were stored in the Castle but never curated. Concern was raised by Torrey and others that the collections were unusable in their unmounted state and were being damaged by insects. It was concern over the need for an active curator in Washington that led to the deal whereby the uncurated materials in the Castle were transferred to USDA and combined with the USDA herbarium (the former Patent Office herbarium), with the understanding that USDA would hire a curator. USDA hired C.C. Parry to curate the combined herbarium. Parry’s work was not satisfactory and he was fired after less than three years and replaced by George Vasey, who curated the National Herbarium for 22 years and bears most of the credit for molding it into a well-organized and well-curated major herbarium. AW
[6] The U.S. National Museum is that branch of the Smithsonian Institution comprising the Museum of Natural History and the Museum of History and Technology. CVM
[7] The transfer was made due to widespread concern in the scientific community that the Agriculture Museum building where the collection had been moved in 1881 was a serious fire hazard, and that the herbarium was in danger of being lost if it was not moved to a fireproof building. The herbarium was physically moved to the Castle in 1894, and officially transferred to the Smithsonian Institution on 1 July 1896. At this time, all herbarium employees were moved from USDA to Smithsonian except Coville, who remained a USDA employee, although he continued as curator of the National Herbarium and editor of the Contributions until his death in 1937. AW
[8] The U.S. National Herbarium is a quasi-official organization previously administered by the Division of Plants and now by the Department of Botany of the Smithsonian Institution. It was established in 1894 as the name for the joint plant collections of the U.S. National Museum and the Department of Agriculture. CVM
[9] Coville was Curator, not Honorary, from 1893 until his death in 1937. Rose was with USDA from 1888 through 1896, then transferred to the Smithsonian when the herbarium did in 1896. AW
[10] Maxon was the fourth Curator of the U.S. National Herbarium (following C.C. Parry, 1869-1871; George Vasey, 1872-1893; and F.V. Coville, 1893-1937), and the second curator since it was transferred to the Smithsonian in 1896. AW
[11] Coville was editor from the inception of the series in 1890 until 1936; Maxon took over with the next issue, in 1939. No issue of the journal mentions Steele. AW
[12] The second volume of Greene’s “Landmarks of Botanical History” was published by the Hunt Institute in 1983. AW
[13] Kearney worked primarily on cotton culture, and Blake primarily did determinations in the Economic Botany Herbarium. Both of them used the National Herbarium regularly, but neither “spent most of their time” away from their primary jobs. The three USDA scientists who did spend most of their time in the National Herbarium, Hitchcock, Chase, and Swallen, are not mentioned in this paragraph. AW
[14] Most of the Biltmore Herbarium was destroyed in the flood that destroyed much of Asheville in 1916. The specimens they recovered were turned over to the Smithsonian when they decided not to start the Biltmore Herbarium anew – about a quarter of the collection (25,000 of 100,000 sheets). AW
[15] See Chester R. Benjamin. 1963. The National Fungus Collections. Plant Science Bulletin 9: 1-6. CVM
[16] As of 15 April 2010, plant specimens in the Department of Botany number 4,879,839. The segregated Type Herbarium contains about 101,000 specimens: 86,372 phanerogams, 10,793 grasses, 4,548 ferns, 504 fern allies, 2,106 cryptogams, 4,577 algae, 338 diatoms, and 2,971 lichen. GK
[17] The October – December 2004 issue of The Plant Press (Vol. 7, No. 4), provides a detailed account of the history of the Contributions from the U.S. National Herbarium. The Contributions have 56 completed volumes, and the Smithsonian Contributions to Botany have 94 completed volumes. GK
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