Harvard University Herbaria

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The Harvard University Herbaria and Botanical Museum are institutions located on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The museum is one of three which comprise the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

The herbaria, founded in 1842 by Asa Gray, contains specimens of plants, conducts research, and provides the Gray Herbarium Index (GCI); this was the center for botanical research in the United States of America by the time of its founder's retirement in the 1870s. The materials deposited there have provided one of the three major sources for the International Plant Names Index.^[1] The museum was founded in 1858. It was originally called the Museum of Vegetable Products and was predominantly focused on an interdisciplinary study of useful plants (i.e. "economic botany" and horticulture). The nucleus of materials for this museum was donated was by Sir William Hooker, the Director of the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew.

George Lincoln Goodale became the museum's first director in 1888; under his direction the building was completed in 1890 to provided both research facilities and public exhibits which were the botanical compliment to the "Agassiz" Museum of Comparative Zoology. Three successive directors substantially enlarged the collections of economic products, medicinal plants, artifacts, archeological materials, pollen, and photographs.

Faculty and students continue to add significantly to the extensive paleobotanical collections, particularly Precambrian material containing early life forms.

The Oakes Ames Collection of Economic Botany, the Paleobotanical Collection (including the Pollen Collection), and the Margaret Towle Collection of Archaeological Plant Remains are housed in the Botanical Museum building. The library and various herbaria are located in the Harvard University Herbaria building.

The Ware Collection of Glass Models of Plants, popularly known as the "Glass Flowers," are considered one of the University's great treasures. Commissioned by Goodale and created by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka from 1887 through 1936, the collection comprises over 3,000 models including life-size and enlarged parts for over 840 species. This is the only collection of its type in the world.

The Botanical Museum of Harvard University and the other museums that comprise the Harvard Museum of Natural History are physically connected to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and one admission grants visitors access to all museums.