Botanical Research Institute of Texas Rescues Orphaned Herbarium at the University of Louisiana-Monroe

FORT WORTH, TX – The Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT®) is pleased to announce the nonprofit has been selected to receive almost half a million plant specimens that have been orphaned by the University of Louisiana at Monroe (ULM). This acquisition will increase the total number of specimens housed by the institute to more than 1.3 million and will place BRIT’s herbarium among the top ten (in specimens housed) in the United States.

The ULM collection represents more than 99 percent of the species in Louisiana’s vascular flora and is considered to be the state’s most complete record of plants. Due to funding issues, however, the university would have been forced to destroy it if its herbarium staff hadn’t found a home for the collection by the end of July 2017. Due to the size and breadth of this collection, its loss would have seriously impaired botanical scientific research not only locally within Louisiana but also nationally and even internationally.

“BRIT’s herbarium was designed to house over two million plant specimens,” says Ed Schneider, president and executive director of BRIT. “Orphaned herbarium collections such as this one are just the type of acquisitions we had in mind as our headquarters building was being designed. Safeguarding and protecting plant specimens for research and education is our Institute’s mission.”

Rescuing the university’s herbarium from destruction will help conserve the natural heritage of Louisiana and the surrounding regions in which collections were made. Louisiana is considered uniquely vulnerable to a suite of environmental threats, including extreme weather, land subsidence, wetlands loss, and ocean acidification. Securing the collections at BRIT ensures that they will continue to be available as a resource for science and the public and be maintained and protected in a modern facility for scientific specimens.

The ULM specimens will join BRIT’s extensive collections of U.S. and world plants, providing a wealth of scientific information to students and researchers.

All preparations for the move will be completed within the first half of July. The move will proceed during late July/early August. The specimens will be transferred in temperature-controlled trailers equipped with freezers capable of reaching -29°C to eradicate all insect threats. Once in Fort Worth, the plants will remain inside the freezers for an additional seven days, prior to being incorporated into BRIT’s herbarium.

Featured

  • Austin International School Library Renovation

    Established in 1999, the Education Design Showcase is a vehicle for showing off innovative — yet practical — solutions in planning, design, architecture, and construction. The Austin International School has been recognized with an EDS 2025 Grand Prize award in the category of Renovation.

  • K–12 Safety Trends Report Reveals Reliance on Training, Technology

    Wearable safety technology provider CENTEGIX recently released its 2025 School Safety Trends Report, according to a news release. The report is based on more than 265,000 incidents during the 2024–25 school year as reported through the CENTEGIX Safety Platform, used by more than 800 school districts across the U.S.

  • S4L Launches 2025 Facilities and Construction Brief Survey

    Spaces4Learning recently launched its 2025 Facilities and Construction Brief Survey, which gathers information on K–12 and higher education construction projects nationwide from the previous year. The data we get from you, our readers, forms an industry report offering an overview of current trends in school facilities.

  • Dallas ISD Debuts New Peabody Elementary School

    The Dallas Independent School District in Dallas, Texas, recently announced the completion of the new facility for George Peabody Elementary School, according to a news release. The district partnered with Pfluger Architects and REEDER Construction on the 70,807-square-foot replacement campus, which has the capacity for 550 students.

Digital Edition