7th Annual WML Academic Symposium

Presenter(s): Bobby Casey, Herman Freeman, Michael McDonald, Caleb Parrish, and Cece Shoemaker
Title: Campbell University Herbarium (CAU), a repository of global plant specimens
Developed under the guidance of Dr. Chris Havran , Biology

Herbaria serve as repositories for the cataloged storage of plant specimens, mounted and stored in a climate-controlled environment. The Campbell University Herbarium (CAU) was established in 2011 and currently contains 3000 accessioned specimens with a backlog of approximately 1400 specimens. Specimens are acquired from student collections and from exchanges with other herbaria. Currently eight biology undergraduate students have learned curatorial techniques through their work in the CAU as well as greatly enhanced their ability to recognize a variety of plant species. The herbarium allows for visual identification of species and also serves as a source of DNA from the samples.