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Herbarium

The Herbarium Community

Join a welcoming community exploring the rich and diverse flora of the Chicago region.

Content Detail

The Morton Arboretum Herbarium is a valuable resource to researchers in botany, genetics, conservation ecology, restoration, and other disciplines, but its specimens and specimen data are also accessible to the public.

The Herbarium community is a broad coalition of researchers, green professionals, botanical artists, and anyone interested in learning about the rich and diverse flora of the Chicago region.

Research Staff

Curators

Volunteers

Stories from the Herbarium Community

 

 

Contact the Herbarium

Email herbarium@mortonarb.org to schedule orientation training or a visit to study specimens.

Research Staff

Andrew L. Hipp, PhD, director of the Herbarium and lead scientist in Plant Systematics

Andrew L. Hipp, PhD, leads the strategy for its collections, digitization, and outreach. Hipp also leads The Morton Arboretum’s Plant Systematics Research Group, which explores the biodiversity and evolutionary history of plants through molecular systematics, ecological experiments, field and herbarium specimens, and genomics.

Lindsey Worcester, Herbarium coordinator and research assistant

Lindsey Worcester assists with processing and maintaining the collections in the Herbarium as part of its ongoing project to enable researchers and the public to access data and images related to the specimens.

Marlene Hahn, MEd, Plant Systematics Research Program manager

Marlene Hahn, MEd, manages systematics research at the Arboretum, with a special focus on oaks (Quercus), and supports the Arboretum’s Herbarium.

Research Associates

Alan Whittemore, PhD, Herbarium affiliate

Nick Stoynoff, Herbarium affiliate

Gerould Wilhelm, PhD, Herbarium affiliate

Wayne Lampa, Herbarium affiliate

Kathleen Garness, Herbarium affiliate and scientific illustrator

Scott Kobal, Herbarium affiliate

Carol Kobal, Herbarium affiliate

Antonio Del Vallé, Herbarium affiliate and ecologist at Dupage Forest Preserves

Senna Robeson, Herbarium affiliate and University of Chicago PhD candidate

Kieran Althaus, Herbarium affiliate and University of Chicago PhD candidate

Elanor Fuller, Herbarium affiliate and University of Chicago PhD student

Curators

Andrew L. Hipp, PhD, director of the Herbarium and lead scientist in Plant Systematics, curates the Herbarium’s vascular plants collection.

Wayne Lampa, Herbarium affiliate and emeritus ecologist of DuPage County Forest Preserves, curates the Herbarium’s bryophyte collection.

Christy Rollinson, PhD, senior scientist in forest ecology, curates the Herbarium’s wood archive collection.

Gerould Wilhelm, PhD, Herbarium affiliate and director of research at Conservation Research Institute, curates the Herbarium’s lichen collection.

Volunteers

Volunteering in the Herbarium is an outstanding way to learn about The Morton Arboretum’s plant collections and how the Herbarium aids biodiversity research! Volunteers assist Herbarium staff with preserving and processing specimens.

Volunteers learn to collect, process, record, enter data, and mount specimens on acid-free paper. Regular weekday shifts between three and four hours are asked of Herbarium volunteers.

The Herbarium has an active group of approximately 30 volunteers, and we are often looking for new volunteers.

Please visit The Morton Arboretum’s webpage to learn more about volunteering and to fill out an application form.

Stories from the Herbarium Community

A Closer Look at the 100-Year-Old Arboretum Herbarium

Establishing an herbarium was among Arboretum founder Joy Morton’s initial priorities in 1922, along with a research library. Over the course of a century, the Arboretum’s Herbarium has acquired more than 200,000 dried plant samples for preservation, education, and scientific purposes.

A Common Garden of Oak Trees

The Plant Systematics Lab and Herbarium are collaborating with researchers worldwide to learn how our changing climate may affect the future of forests. Experimental work on bur oaks, for example, is tied closely to the Herbarium, where specimens documenting each of approximately 1,000 trees will be available for researchers to study hundreds of years from now.

The Wonder of the World’s Oaks

The extensive collection of dried plant specimens in the Arboretum’s Herbarium helps its scientists study the history, evolution, and ecology of oaks in the Chicago region and around the world. Herbarium collections are used to investigate oak taxonomy, assess threats to species as a way of informing conservation priorities, and map species geographic ranges.

To See a Tree

Herbaria are places to learn species, to document individual plants, and to study how plants grow and evolve. When The Morton Arboretum Herbarium staff, students, affiliates, and volunteers look at a tree, they see deep into time and far across space. Herbarium specimens allow them to travel places where they may never go in person, through an archive of specimens built up over more than a century.