New Welcome Sign Provides Fresh Look to Fourth Floor Herbarium Entrance

From Plant Press, Vol. 20, No. 4, October 2017.

By Robin Everly

Last year the Department of Botany announced its new exhibit in the fourth floor public space entitled, Botany in a New Era of Discovery. Created by botany staffers, this exhibit gave the area an updated look, as well as explaining the department’s research to museum visitors. Four case studies of how new plant species were discovered by staff botanists are featured with intriguing story panels.

Along the same lines, this year Botany Department Chair Laurence Dorr decided it was also time to update the U.S. National Herbarium interior staff spaces beginning with the fourth floor. In March 2017, a committee was established to create a welcome panel along the fourth floor north wall to be followed by five display panels in the future. The committee is comprised of Department of Botany staff Rose Gulledge (committee chair), Ingrid Lin, Melinda Peters, Alice Tangerini, and Smithsonian Libraries librarian, Robin Everly.

A new welcome sign greets visitors to the U.S. National Herbarium. Standing in front of the sign is the exhibit committee (from left): Ingrid Lin, Alice Tangerini, Melinda Peters, Robin Everly, and Rose Gulledge. (photo by Gary Krupnick)

Melinda Peters, Rose Gulledge, and Alice Tangerini disassemble a display case to prepare it for new material. (photo by Ingrid Lin)

The committee has been hard at work coming up with ideas and plans to transform this wall, plus the fourth floor entrance, and the three exhibit cases outside the Chair’s office. The first completed project is the signature panel, Welcome to the U.S. National Herbarium. It is a lovely photograph of our iconic National History Building and dome taken by Lin. As Tangerini stated after selection, “The photo is timeless and fresh looking.” The committee poured over 50 photographs of various photos of the building and surrounding gardens.

The committee’s next project, after having our craft shop spruce up the exhibit cases, is to display Department of Botany items selected for the National Museum of Natural History’s biannual Board meeting. Also this year, work will begin on a second panel—telling the story of how the Japanese flowering cherry trees came to the United States. So next time you visit the herbarium, please be sure to check out the new welcome sign and our updates to beautifying and improving our fourth floor work space.

The committee would like to thank Smithsonian Facilities staff, particularly Kevin Moyers and LaMont Alexander, who have been a tremendous help in the committee accomplishing its work and vision.