# News & Events ## expand\_more ## Recent News [### State of the World’s Plants and Fungi ](/news/2026/06/state-worlds-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... ![Digitising plants at Kew](/sites/g/files/omnuum6796/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2026-06/01.%20Digitising%20plants%20at%20Kew%20-%20CREDIT%20-%20Jeff%20Eden%20%E2%94%AC%E2%8C%90%20RBG%20Kew.jpg?h=1e53ca76&itok=vSIdrc4j) [### Collection Spotlight – Friedrich Eser’s Dysodil Fossils ](/news/2026/05/collection-spotlight-friedrich-esers-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 –... [Carolyn Thornton](/people/carolyn-thornton) , [Mitchell Bryan](/people/mitchell-bryan) ![Removing mold (left) and dust (right) from the surface of the specimens and the cardboard.](/sites/g/files/omnuum6796/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2026-05/4_cleaning2.jpg?itok=K8qu55VF) [### Specimen Spotlight - The Farlow "Thousand-Dollar Specimens" ](/news/2026/05/specimen-spotlight-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approached the Farlow Herbarium for a grant in return for all specimens of cryptogams (spore-producing "plants"; this outdated category... ![specimen sheet with Cryphaea_borneensis, labels, ruler, annotations](/sites/g/files/omnuum6796/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2026-05/Cryphaea_borneensis%20-%20James%20Mitchell.jpg?h=1a6c66f4&itok=JcvC77-i) [ More arrow\_circle\_right ](/news)