Tulane University Herbarium

The Tulane University Herbarium (Index Herbariorum abbreviation NO) is one of the principal herbaria of the Gulf South region. The University holds specimens of algae, bryophytes, and vascular plants, all housed in Stanley Thomas Hall on the main campus in New Orleans. The collections of algae are maintained primarily for teaching purposes. The bryological collections (ca. 2500 specimens) are mainly of Gulf Coast mosses and liverworts representing valuable historical collections.

The vascular plant herbarium includes ca. 115,000 specimens of worldwide representation, but is strongest in the flora of the southeastern United States, southern California, the Rocky Mountain region of Colorado, and northern Latin America, especially the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Important special collections include more than 300 type specimens, early plant collections from the lower Mississippi River drainage, Arizona and California ferns of J.G. Lemmon, and North American Gramineae and Cyperaceae of Asa Gray. Recent accessions include collections made by Tulane faculty and students, and exchange material received from some thirty institutions worldwide. Herbarium loans support a wide variety of monographic, floristic, ecological, and ethnobotanical studies.

Research in systematic and taxonomic botany is further supported by the Minna F. Koch Library of Botany, a collection of more than 1000 titles housed adjacent to the herbarium and rich in historical botany and plant illustration, as well as worldwide floras, monographs, dictionaries, and essential reference works.

The University's fungal collections (roughly 8,000 specimens) were donated to The New York Botanical Garden in May of 1999.

Materials contributed by Tulane University Herbarium (NO):

• Specimens