News

New Publication - Nomenclatural updates in Vellozia

August 07, 2026

Former HUH Research Fellow Jenifer Lopes has published research from her fellowship in Taxon . In the paper, she and colleagues at the Universidade de São Paulo examine Vellozia , a group of flowering plants that is especially diverse in Brazil's Campos...

Life and Death on Pangea

August 03, 2026

In January 2025, the PBS Eons production team visited our colleagues at the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) to film segments for their series, Life and Death on Pangea. That visit is now available on PBS with the first two episodes of the series...

New Publication - Taxonomic Assessment and Neotypification of Salicornia utahensis

July 28, 2026

Salicornia utahensis is a small, salt-loving glasswort that grows around salty lakes and flats in the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico, including the Great Salt Lake area. It helps structure these harsh ecosystems and is of interest for future salt...

New Publication - Nature, Literature and Culture

July 16, 2026

For several years, Jonathan Locke Hart has been an Associate of the Harvard University Herbaria. His scholarly interests span poetry, cultural history, and science, bringing together disciplines that are too often treated separately. In his recent book...

New Publication - Two new species of Annonaceae

July 02, 2026

Zacky Ezedin, former HUH Research Fellow and current Associate, has a new publication in Candollea highlighting some of the work he completed on the flora of Papua New Guinea while at the HUH. Ezedin uncovered two striking new plant species in the...

State of the World’s Plants and Fungi

June 17, 2026

Harvard University Herbaria is one of 170+ institutions in 40 countries contributing to Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’s 2026 State of the World’s Plants and Fungi [PDF] report. The report explores how new technology is transforming the race to save nature...

Collection Spotlight – Friedrich Eser’s Dysodil Fossils

May 08, 2026

In the spring of 2024, while deciding which portion of the HUPB collection to inventory and rehouse next, the paleo team came across a set of very unusual specimens preserved in a sediment called dysodil. These specimens were similar to paper shales –...

Specimen Spotlight - The Farlow "Thousand-Dollar Specimens"

May 01, 2026

Swedish zoologist and ethnographer Eric Georg Mjöberg, seeking sources of funding for a 1925 expedition to Borneo, approached the Farlow Herbarium for a grant in return for all specimens of cryptogams (spore-producing "plants"; this outdated category...

Following in Fernald's Footsteps

February 11, 2026

Harvard botanist Merritt L. Fernald made many collecting trips to Virginia between 1934 & 1947 as part of his work on the 8th edition of Gray's Manual of Botany. On one occasion he wrote about Southeastern Virginia: In spite of almost complete clearing...

New Publication - The Rare, Endangered and Endemic Plants of the California Floristic Province

February 04, 2026

Senior Nomenclatural Registrar Kanchi Gandhi is co-author on a new paper out in Aliso documenting the rare, endangered, and endemic plants of the California Floristic Province (CFP), one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots known for high levels of plant...

New Publication - Genomic Analysis of Pedicularis furbishiae

January 07, 2026

Postdoctoral Fellow Dawson White has led the publication of the first reference genome and a population genomic analysis of Pedicularis furbishiae, a globally rare plant restricted to dynamic riverbank habitats along the Wolastoq (Saint John) River in...

Year in Review

December 17, 2025

The 2024-25 Academic Year was a busy one for the HUH! We welcomed a new Director, Dr. Jeannine Cavender-Bares, celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Farlow, launched the IHerbSpec working group, wished some long-time staff well in their retirements, and...