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Intermountain Herbarium Holdings

Overall Growth

The 247,000+ specimens in the Intermountain Herbarium come primarily from western North America, but there are substantial holdings from other parts of the world.

The Database Growth Graph shows the growth over the past 6 years. Figures for 2005 will be updated irregularly. The growth rate for the past five years has been slightly over 2,400 specimens per year.

Most specimens in the herbarium are of vascular plants, with approximately half coming from Utah and Nevada, the core states of the Intermountain Region. The Specimen Origin Map, which shows only specimens for which we have latitude and longitude data, is somewhat out of date but provides a reasonable representation of the geographic origin of the herbarium's holdings. Warning: much of the latitude and longitude information has been obtained retroactively; we do not guarantee its accuracy.

Fungal Collection

The herbarium now has over 2,400 fungal specimens, all of which have been databased. They come primarily from Dr. R. Fogel, an Emeritus Professor of the University of Michigan and Adjunct Professor of Utah State University who has an active collecting program in the Intermountain Region, and Michael Piep, the Assistant Curator, whose interests lie in the macrofungi of Utah. Dr. Brad Kropp, the Curator of Fungi, has stated that he would like to deposit his collection in the herbarium (about 10 cabinets worth) but we do not have the cabinets to house it, nor the staff to process the specimens involved. Another major fungal collection on campus for which the herbarium provide for is that of Dr. Nabil Youssef, who has developed the world's largest collection of fungi that parasitize bees. Again, the problem is that we do not have the resources needed for the task.

Bryophyte Collection

The bryophyte collection is small, occupying about 100% of one cabinet. About half the specimens are duplicates of specimens collected by Flowers, author of Utah's Mosses and Hepaticae of Utah.

Types

Among its specimens, the herbarium has 55 holotypes and 1,176 isotypes. Like the most collection, most of the type specimens are vascular plants, but three of the holotypes and several of the isotypes are of fungi.