Herbarium

Vascular plants — ferns, gymnosperms, and angiosperms — are typically preserved by taking a sample of a plant, pressing it flat, and drying it thoroughly. After pressing and drying, samples are glued to archival, acid-free paper along with a label providing information about the collection. The official Index Herbarium initials of the Clifton Smith Herbarium is “SBBG.” Preserved in this way and properly curated, herbarium specimens may last centuries. This provides an invaluable, through-time record of plant biodiversity. 

The Garden’s Herbarium houses approximately 155,000 vascular plant specimens, with a regional emphasis on the Tri-Counties (San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties) and the Channel Islands. In fact, it is the designated repository for specimens collected from Channel Islands National Park (Index Herbariorum initials “CHIS”). The Herbarium also has strong representation from the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, the Los Padres National Forest, Camp Roberts, Camp San Luis Obispo, and Fort Hunter Liggett. 

Principal collections of the Herbarium include E. R. (Jim) Blakley (Santa Barbara region), E. R. Chandler, Hugh and Margaret Dearing (California), Clare Hardham (Santa Lucia Mountains), Ralph Hoffmann (the Channel Islands and the Mojave Desert), Steve Junak (California Islands), Martin Piehl (Channel Islands), and Clifton Smith (Santa Barbara region). 

Lichens are often firmly attached to the substrates on which they grow, so in order to collect and preserve them, it is necessary to collect little pieces of the bark, rock, or soil as well. These substrates sometimes make collections bulky which prevent them from being pressed and mounted on regular herbarium sheets. Sometimes, a specimen on a rock will require a small box for storage, but most lichens can be kept in 4-by-6-inch envelopes. 

With the oldest lichen specimen dating back to 1864, the Garden’s Lichenarium holds over 50,000 lichen specimens, more than 65% of which were collected in California. The best represented regions in our Lichenarium are the Channel Islands, Southern California, and the central coast, but a few specimens come from as far away as Antarctica. Two women, Charis Bratt and Shirley Tucker, Ph.D., contributed the largest part (over 23,000 specimens) of our collection. 

Our vascular plant specimen records from the Herbarium are available through the Consortium of California Herbaria Portal 2, which is an online repository of plant specimen data from participating herbaria across the state. High-resolution digital images of over 80,000 of our specimens, along with nearly 1 million from other California herbaria, are also available.

The Garden’s lichen specimen records are maintained on the Consortium of North American Lichen Herbaria while the Garden’s macrofungus specimen records are maintained on the Mycology Collections data Portal. 

Our digital specimen data are being used in exciting, new ways. Specimen metadata, such as when a specimen was collected or what it was growing with, are increasingly being used to better answer some of the most urgent questions of our time, such as those pertaining to global climate change. For example, specimen data is being used to assess if plants are germinating and flowering earlier than usual given our warming climate, a potentially worrisome pattern that may result in a decoupling of plants and their ecosystem partners (e.g., pollinators).