Robert A. Evers Laboratory (photo by Paul B. Marcum, 2012)
University of Illinois Herbarium
Plant Biology Department
University of Illinois
505 South Goodwin Avenue
Urbana, Illinois 61801
United States
Web: http://www.life.illinois.edu/plantbio/herbarium/
Dr. David Seigler, Curator
Tel: (217) 333-2522
Email: seigler@life.illinois.edu
The foundation of the Herbarium of the University of Illinois (ILL) nearly coincided with the establishment of the University in 1867. In 1868, Thomas Jonathan Burrill, its first professor of natural history, donated his own specimens of the flora of Champaign County to form the nucleus of a teaching collection. Under his direction, and with the help of his students, the herbarium quickly developed into an important depository of scientific specimens for resesarch, documentation and reference. A few of Burrill's flowering plant specimens are still in the herbarium, but he is best known for his work with, and collections of, parasitic fungi. Among his more illustrious students, who augmented the herbarium with gifts from their personal collections, are G. P. Clinton, F. S. Earle, A. B. Seymour, and M. B. Waite.
Upon the retirement of Burrill in 1912, William Trelease, formerly director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, took over as professor of botany and curator. He organized the herbarium according to the Dalla Torre & Harms system of classification and was instrumental, through purchases, exchanges and gifts, in the acquisition of specimens from many renowned collectors, including M. S. Bebb, S. F. Blake, F. Brendel, I. W. Clokey, A. H. Curtiss, F. C. Gates, E. J. Hill, F. E. McDonald, E. J. Palmer, C. R. Pringle, J. Schneck, and G. Vasey, to name a few. Trelease's own important collections include large holdings of Phoradendron, Piper, Quercus, and Yucca, along with many type specimens. During his administration, Mrs. Mary Snyder donated her set of Phycotheca Boreali-americana to the herbarium, representing over 2,000 named species of algae compiled by Collins, Holden and Setchell. Several exsiccatae sets of lichens (Calkin, Cummings and Seymour) probably were purchased during this period. By 1923, Trelease had recorded 169,000 accessions, and at the time of his retirement in 1926, the number of specimens at ILL had grown to nearly 205,000.
Notable collections added to the herbarium through the mid-century include those of H. A. Gleason, A. A. Heller, W. S. Moffatt, A. Nelson, F. W. Pennell, F. L. Wynd, and C. H. Mueller, and not least the collections made by J. T. Buchholz, mostly of gymnosperms, and many of them from New Caledonia. Types and other authentic material of several species of Araucaria and Podocarpus described by Buchholz are on deposit at ILL.
George Neville Jones became curator of the bryophytes and vascular plants in 1946, while Leland Shanor was named Curator of Fungi. During his tenure, until 1968, Jones contributed over 40,000 of his own collections. Noteworthy among these are his many numbers of North American Salicaceae and a nearly complete set of plants of Robert Allerton Park, Piatt County, IL. Jones was instrumental in the acquisition of the L. F. Koch collection of bryophytes, and specimens of the two Hoogstraal expeditions to Mexico (in 1939 and 1941). He arranged for the purchase, by the University, of the V. H. Chase herbarium of over 40,000 sheets (which also included specimens of other collectors, such as Agnes Chase). By the time of his death in 1970, the ILL collections had grown to over 400,000.
Jones was eventually succeeded as curator by his wife, Almut G. Jones, who added several thousand of her own specimens to the ILL collection, principally in the Asteraceae. She was succeeded by the current curator, Dr. David Seigler, whose work especially on the genus Acacia has supplemented the herbarium greatly.
The mycological collections at ILL were overseen by Donald P. Rogers from 1957 to 1976, from 1976 to 1986 by his student, J. L. Crane (also mycological curator at ILLS), and most recently by Dr. Carol A. Shearer. Especially noteworthy among the fungal holdings at ILL are the large collection by F. L. Stevens of tropical fungi from Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippine Islands (which includes many types), and several well-known sets of exsiccatae, which alone total at least 70,000 specimens.