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Freshman Danielle Hacker and Collections Manager Kim Kersh at Cal Day 2006 - Photo credit: Peg Skorpinski (click for News item)
Girl with carnivorous plant - Cal Day 2006 (click for News item) Moss - Polytrichum sp. - Photo credit: Eric Harris (click for personal page) Flowering plant - Eriogonum truncatum - Photo credit: Scott Hein of Save Mount Diablo (click for News item) Alga - Antithamnion cruciatum - Photo credit: Athanasios Athanasiadis (click for publication in Constancea) Flowering plant - Madia elegans "densifolia" - Photo credit: Bruce G. Baldwin (click for Baldwin Lab) Flowering plant - Allium crispum - Photo credit: John Game (click for John Game's photographs) Plant display and lecturer - Cal Day 2006 (click for News item) Moss - Sphagnum mendocinum - Photo credit: John Game (click for BryoLab)
Welcome to the Herbaria
The University and Jepson Herbaria of the University of California at Berkeley are two collections of pressed plants housed together along with research labs, libraries, and archives. Together the Herbaria hold about 2,200,000 specimens, one of the largest collections in North America.
 •The University Herbarium, established in 1895, holds botanical collections from around the world.
 •The Jepson Herbarium, established in 1950, specializes in the vascular plants of California.
News from the Herbaria

Consortium of California Herbaria passes million record mark.

Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden and Santa Barbara Botanic Garden together uploaded nearly 40,000 records to the Consortium data view, bringing the total number of specimen records served to 1.03 million. See the main Consortium search page.

Curatorial Volunteers Needed at University and Jepson Herbaria

One Saturday of each month is a Volunteer Day in the Herbaria. Learn more about how you can help!

UC/Jeps to co-sponsor a meeting on the Evolution of Pacific Island Biota.

This meeting, to be held on Kauai, Hawaii in January or May 2010, will examine the biogeography and evolution of terrestrial, near-shore, and freshwater biota, including humans, that are distributed across the Pacific Islands.

NEWS FLASH! David Gowen featured in DISCOVER MAGAZINE, Nov. 2008, for his discovery of two new wildflower species near Mount Diablo

The Lime Ridge Navarretia (Navarretia gowenii) and the Lime Ridge Woollystar (Eriastrum sp. nov.) were discovered on East Bay public lands in an area that has been studied by botanists for 150 years. Outdoor enthusiast, retired carpenter, and UC/JEPS volunteer David Gowen was encouraged by the Jepson Herbarium's Barbara Ertter to persist in his search for rare and new species in the region. The California Native Plant Society, Save Mount Diablo, and the Walnut Creek Open Space Foundation are working together on a conservation plan.

SO BE FREE 14 ----coming up March 24-27, 2009

The 2009 SO BE FREE bryological foray will be held near Oakhurst, California, and will explore the varied habitats of the lower elevations of the central Sierra Nevada. This year's event is organized by Brent Mishler, Paul Wilson, and Jim Shevock. Get more information.

sobefree

 

Bryophyte data going online!

Label data from 95,000 specimens collected by Dan Norris and Jim Shevock now available. See the data!

Herbarium data used to project the effects of climate change. 

David Ackerly, Curator of Ecology at UC/JEPS and Professor of Integrative Biology, was the leader of a team that analyzed current distributions of over 2,000 California endemic plants based on data from the Consortium of California Herbaria and the Jepson Flora Project.  The team discovered that many of these species are in great danger unless they can move to new localities with appropriate climate.

Read the original scientific publication

Learn more about this study and see recent media reports
 
More news...
Featured Projects
 
The Jepson Manual

The primary focus of Jepson Flora Project is a five-year initiative (2003–2008) to produce a scientifically revised Jepson Manual. The Second Edition will provide revised treatments for all taxa in the 1993 edition of the Manual and include new treatments for taxa that have been added to the flora of the state since 1993. Read more...

   
Consortium of California Herbaria

The Consortium of California Herbaria serves as a gateway to information from California vascular plant specimens that are housed in herbaria throughout the state. The database now includes information from nearly 900,000 specimens, all searchable through a single interface. Read more...

   
CalEON The California Ecological Observatory Network (CalEON) is a regional network of field sites, natural history museums, and university labs. CalEON is dedicated to facilitating a cutting-edge network of ecological measurement and observation systems, connected via informatics with data from museum collections and laboratory studies ranging from taxonomy through physiology and genomics. Read more...
   
Green Tree of Life

The objective of the Green Tree of Life project is to resolve the primary pattern of evolutionary diversification among green plants and establish a model for doing so that will be applicable to other groups of organisms with long evolutionary histories. Read more..

   
Baldwin Lab

Evolutionary and systematic studies of Californian vascular plants are a major research focus of the Baldwin Lab in the Jepson Herbarium, where investigations of the highly diverse native tarweeds and their Hawaiian-silversword descendants continue apace. Read more...

 
 
Berkeley Natural History Museums   The University and Jepson Herbaria are part of the Berkeley Natural History Museum Consortium.
 
 
Picea breweriana, Trinity Alps, California - Photo credit: John Game