WELCOME TO THE UCLA HERBARIUM!
The UCLA Herbarium serves as a one-of-a-kind resource for the wider Los Angeles community in promoting the preservation and identification of plants.
Our collections consist of approximately 150,000 dried and pressed plant specimens with a special focus on California and the Western United States, and expanding interest in similar Mediterranean-climate regions of the world. In addition, the Herbarium maintains a repository of voucher specimens from ecological studies conducted by UCLA researchers as well as a special library of botanical literature and journals.
The mission of the UCLA Herbarium is to facilitate the taxonomic and ecological study of vascular plants and to act as a teaching tool for UCLA and other academic institutions. Additionally, the UCLA Herbarium serves the surrounding community as a resource for the identification of plants, both horticultural and native.
To this end, the herbarium maintains a collection of species from around the world, and a collection of botanical literature and journals to facilitate research and plant identification. The herbarium also serves as a repository for voucher specimens associated with studies conducted by UCLA Faculty and student researchers.
HISTORY
The exact year in which the UCLA herbarium was first established is unclear, but it likely dates back to the period before 1929, when UCLA was still a branch campus of UC Berkeley located on Vermont Ave in downtown Los Angeles.
The core of the UCLA Herbarium was established through the acquisition of preserved collections from the short-lived “California Botanical Garden” (CBG; 1928-1935), a project led by Elmer Merrill, the former Dean of Agriculture at UC Berkeley. Before its closure, the CBG had amassed a large herbarium which was transferred to UCLA just as the university began offering classes at its new Westwood campus in 1929.
These collections included specimens from the Bonati and Tapp Herbaria that were purchased by Elmer Merrill, as well as Merrill’s own personal collections from his research in the Philippines. Since then, the UCLA Herbarium has grown to nearly 150,000 vascular plant specimens and contains the collections of many other famed botanists including Carl Epling, Harlan Lewis, Peter Raven, Henry J. Thompson, Jonathan Sauer, Elizabeth McClintock, and Lawrence Kiefer.