Open house planned for newly renovated Sperry Herbarium
Sep. 29—PITTSBURG, Kan. — An open house is planned from 3 to 6 p.m. Friday for the T.M. Sperry Herbarium at Pittsburg State University to celebrate its newly renovated space and facilities in Room 212 of Hartman Hall.
The event will feature a short presentation by director Neil Snow, a professor of biology, on the recent completion of a grant from the National Science Foundation.
The herbarium was officially established in 1946 by Theodore M. Sperry. Starting with some 100 specimens in 1946, under Sperry's direction the herbarium had grown to nearly 40,000 specimens by 1974.
Stephen Timme, a bryologist, took over the herbarium in 1989 until his retirement in 2011.
Today, the herbarium houses approximately 42,000 vascular plants and 6,000 bryophytes, with approximately 3,000 plants waiting to be logged. Nearly all of its specimens have been databased online.
The herbarium is fully equipped with digital and printed sources of data to identify plants regionally and across North America. It is open to researchers during the academic year, August through April.
