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 |  | The Botany Collection
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The Garrett Herbarium, established in the late 1800's, is an important regional and national resource for information on plant biodiversity. The pressed plant collection comprises nearly 129,000 specimens, including 22 holotypes and 204 isotypes. In total number of specimens, it is the third largest herbarium in Utah, and ranks in the top 15% worldwide. No other collection in the world has such a complete representation of plants from the Wasatch Front and Salt Lake Valley. The flora of this area is rapidly being altered and displaced by urbanization, and the herbarium provides a crucial historic baseline from which to judge the environmental health of the entire Salt Lake region. The collection includes 98% of the higher plant species known to grow in the state. Specimens from elsewhere in the Great Basin are common, and the herbarium has one of the best collections of vascular plants from the Intermountain West.
As a result, the Garrett Herbarium has been an important source of data for all major floristic projects in the region, including A Utah Flora, Atlas of the Vascular Plants of Utah, Intermountain Flora, and the initial volumes of Flora of North America. Beyond the boundaries of the Intermountain West, the Herbarium has extensive collections from Colorado, Montana, and Wisconsin, and a selection of specimens gathered worldwide.
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Other features of the Garrett Herbarium contribute to the exceptional value of the collection. It houses the largest set of historic plant specimens in the Intermountain West, including materials collected by M. E. Jones, P. A. Rydberg, A. O. Garrett, W. S. Flowers, and W. P. Cottam. It includes a set of ca. 1200 chromosome vouchers documenting a recent series of cytogenetic studies on regional flora. Analyses conducted during the early 1990's indicate that the herbarium will be an important resource for future DNA studies of the Utah flora. The collection also shows uncommonly high levels of seed and spore germination. Preliminary analyses yielded an overall germination rate of 27%, with viability extending back to 67 years (the oldest specimen tested so far). In an earlier study of prolonged viability, only three herbaria exhibited germination rates as high as those recorded for the Garrett Herbarium. This makes the collection extraordinarily valuable as a source of living research materials useful for all manner of biological analyses. |
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In addition to its research and historic value, the Garrett Herbarium plays a significant role in education. Faculty and students use the collections in a variety of courses. Graduate students from the Departments of Biology, Geography, and Anthropology make frequent use of the collection, and visits by undergraduates have tripled in the past five years. The general public has access to the herbarium by appointment, and such visits comprise nearly 25% of our annual use.
Links
- Botany Staff
- For a list of Families & Genera Represented in the Garrett Herbarium contact Mitchell Power
- or phone us directly at (801) 581-6520
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