Paleobotanical Collection

The Harvard University Paleobotanical Collection (HUPB) was established when the plant fossils held by the Museum of Comparative Zoology were transferred to the newly created Botanical Museum in 1892. Ongoing transfers of European material from the Boston Society of Natural History and collections of predominantly North American material contributed to the growth of the collection during the 19th century. The collection was administratively transferred to the Harvard University Herbaria (HUH) in 1985 when the Botanical Museum was dissolved as a formal entity. The Paleobotanical Collection is now used for research and teaching by the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

The collection currently includes more than 65,000 plant fossil specimens from around the world with a Precambrian to Holocene stratigraphic range, including over 1500 type and figured specimens. The coal flora of eastern North America is particularly well represented by the Thompson-Darrah collection of Carboniferous coal balls and a large holding of nodules from the Mazon Creek Flora of Illinois. There are also significant European collections from O. Heer and H. Bronn. Other notable components include significant collections by C. Sternberg and L. Lesquereux; thin sections of UK coal balls prepared by J. Lomax of Bolton, England; E. C. Jeffrey’s collection of coal; several thousand specimens of petrified wood including F. W. Hankins’ entire collection; and the largest holdings in the world from the Miocene Brandon Lignite of Vermont. Curators of the collection have been: William Darrah (1934-1946), Elso Barghoorn (1946–1984), and Andrew Knoll (1984–2022).

Inventory and curation of the Paleobotanical Collection is ongoing. A recent inventory of the collection can be downloaded as an Excel spreadsheet; last updated September 2025. This inventory includes HUPB’s type, cited, and figured specimens as well as the following: the Lomax Carboniferous thin section collection; Miocene fossil wood from Vantage, Washington; Brandon Lignite; the E. C. Jeffrey Coal collection; and HUPB’s teaching collection. This inventory will be updated periodically. Ledgers listing all the accessioned specimens in the collection are available here. Please contact huh-requests@oeb.harvard.edu with any inquiries.