Contact

Jason Best

Organization

Botanical Research Institute of Texas

Partners

The Southeastern Regional Network of Expertise and Collections (SERNEC)

Funding Source

National Science Foundation under award #410069. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Description

Specimens belonging to the Vanderbilt University Collection (VDB) at the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT)

The VDB Herbarium was founded at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee) in 1935 by professors of Biology George Gage and Harold Bold. In the 1940s and 50s the curatorship went to Dr. Elsie Quarterman, then on to Dr. R. Ben Channell. In 1965, Dr. Robert Kral inherited the herbarium of approximately 20,000 specimens and concentrated on developing the collections from Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia, as well as the following taxonomic groups: sedges, xyrids, and grasses. In 1996 a memorandum of understanding was signed between Vanderbilt University and the Botanical Research Institute of Texas (BRIT), permanently transferring the VDB collection to BRIT in 1997. It is a priority to digitize these specimens, thus making them available to botanists for studies of the flora of the southeastern United States.

Incentives

Learn about plants of the southeastern United States and make a significant contribution to science.

Geographic Scope

Southeastern United States

Taxonomic Scope

Various vascular plant families

Temporal Scope

20th and 21st century

Language Skills Required

None