What's an herbarium and why is it in the library?

Exhibit organizer Holly Senn talks to a student whose
work is featured in the library

Librarian Holly Senn has partnered with Biology professor Romey Haberle to bring plant and flower samples, prepared by students, to the library before they make their way to the Irene Creso Herbarium. An herbarium is a systematically arranged collection of dried plants and former Biology professor Irene Creso created the herbarium named after her and housed at PLU. Inspired by this collection, Prof. Haberle decided to have her students contribute to the collection of over 8,000 specimens as part of a class assignment. We are lucky enough to host some of these for the next few weeks. An opening reception was held on Wednesday, May 21.

Prof. Creso spent over 30 years collecting and preparing specimens for her collection, which is used by PLU students. The collection is cataloged by the PNW Herbarium Consortia database, which provides a single access point for over 3.6 million specimens collected from the PNW. The student pieces will be added to the collection.

Prof. Haberle had her Plant Diversity and Distribution class work with her Economic and Cultural Botany class on creating the pieces, which include both biological and practical information about plants found on the PLU campus. So, if you're not sure which berries are poisonous and which could cure headaches, be sure to check out the posters accompanying each piece!

The reception had visitors from all over campus