Herbarium hours are 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM. Arrangements
may be made to use the collections outside regular hours upon consultation
with the staff.
Upon arrival:
Please check with one of the Herbarium staff for orientation. We
strongly suggest that you make an appointment ahead of time to ensure
that a staff member can meet you upon your arrival.
Parking permits for the Bell Tower Parking Lot are available from
Herbarium staff. Please call 919-962-6931 several days prior to
your visit to reserve a permit.
Please sign the guest book.
No smoking, food, or beverages are permitted inside the collections
area.
In order to control herbarium pests, incoming specimens to the Vascular
Herbarium are frozen for 48 hours or more. Users of the collection
who bring specimens in with them are strongly urged to bring in
material treated to ensure that it is free of pests or to contact
herbarium staff ahead of time so we can freeze the collections and
make them available for use upon arrival. If this is not possible,
please contact a member of the herbarium staff and we will make
other arrangements.
Use of the Collections:
Please close herbarium cases when not in use.
Keep specimen folders horizontal when removing them from the cases.
Keep herbarium sheets right side up; do not turn them over like
pages in a book.
Material such as pollen, leaves, and wood must not be removed from
herbarium specimens without prior written consent; refer to the
Destructive Sampling Policy for details. Dissections or loose plant
fragments should be put into packets attached to the sheet. Additional
packets are available from the staff.
Visiting specialists are encouraged to annotate specimens using
permanent ink on annotation labels. Pens and labels are available
from the herbarium staff. Please provide the name of the investigator
and date of annotation. Clip annotation labels to packets or sheets
and the staff will glue them. Alternatively, leave the determinations
on the top of the stack of specimens and the staff will make and
attach the annotation labels.
Specimens that you wish to have sent on loan should be set aside
and labeled with your name and institutional address. A formal written
request for the loan must be received from the director of your
herbarium before the loan will be sent.
A collection of botanical references is maintained in the main herbarium
area. Please do not remove these books without notifying the staff.
Additional references are available from the Botany Library on the
3rd floor; see Herbarium staff for assistance.
Location of the collections:
Herbarium cases containing the vascular collections are spread among
three floors and several rooms of Coker Hall. Cases located in the
hallways are kept locked; a master key is available from the herbarium
staff. Families are arranged in the Englerian sequence. Within each
family, the genera are sorted alphabetically. Each genus is sorted
into geographical regions in color-coded folders. Within each geographic
region, the species are sorted alphabetically. Unidentified specimens
are filed at the end of each category.
