Herbaria Outreach

Listed below are details on the publications, outreach activities, and educational materials provided by the Purdue University Herbaria.

Herbaria Publications

The specimens in the Herbaria have been used for scientific manuscripts, books, and other publications for over 100 years. To this day, these resources are examined by visiting scholars or loaned to researchers in the United States and around the world for additional studies.

Click the image below to view the most recent publications from the Herbaria staff, colleagues, and collaborators.

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Herbaria Tours

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The Herbaria host multiple tours a year, entertaining a range of public and academic audiences. Prospective undergraduates in the College of Agriculture or the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology are welcome to visit and see notable specimens from the Arthur (PUR) and Kriebel (PUL) collections. Academic societies on the Purdue University campus and visiting scholars can make arrangements with Herbaria staff to tour the facilities or examine collections in depth. For further details, please contact the Herbaria staff.

Purdue Spring Fest

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The Herbaria staff are proud participants in the annual Purdue Spring Fest held every April. The Herbaria are open to the public during this event, with displays of notable specimens and scientists, tours by staff and students, and interactive activities.

Since 2023, the Herbaria hosts the public to engage in a scavenger hunt for the names of prominent mycologists, or fungal scientists, in displays posted throughout the Herbaria. Visitors submit their lists of mycologists, with clues being related to each researcher's accomplishments, titles, and areas of expertise, for a chance to win merchandise from the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology. The Herbaria staff and volunteers also lead visitors in an activity, "Make Your Own Plant Collection Sheet", in which participants learn the methods of specimen mounting and preservation. Guests take home the prepared specimens "on loan", in the hopes that these examples of curatorial arts, a first-time experience for most, might prompt exploratory, inquisitive examinations into the world around them, igniting a spark in the natural history collectors and investigators of tomorrow.

Herbaria Outreach Resources

You can download fliers and brochures on the Purdue University Herbaria for distribution below.

Fungal Tree of Life Poster

Illustrated by Beáta Bús and Maarsk Graphics Ltd. Concept by László G. Nagy with much appreciated contributions from Anna Rosling, Catherine Aime, Pedro Crous, David S. Hibbett, François Lutzoni and Romina Gazis-Seregina.

Free to redistribute under provision of a CC BY-NC licence. 2022. Users who wish to refer to phylogenetic relationships illustrated here may cite Nagy and Szollosi 2017 Advances in Genetics 100, 47-92.

(From the László G. Nagy laboratory website.)