Collections

The Fewless Herbarium houses approximately 45,000 vascular plant specimens and several hundred bryophytes (non-vascular land plants including mosses, liverworts, and hornworts), almost entirely from northeastern Wisconsin. The vast majority of the vascular plant collections are flowering plants (Angiosperms), but we also have good representation of the region’s ferns, lycophytes, and gymnosperms. The collection has strong representation of wetland plants (such as the sedge genus Carex, Cyperaceae), reflecting some of Gary Fewless’s research interests. The fastest-growing part of the collection is currently the bryophytes, particularly mosses from the Western Great Lakes peat-accumulating wetlands such as bogs, fens, and conifer swamps (see Research page).

Many of our vascular plant collections can be found on WisFlora, and we are currently in the process of digitizing the collection. Our digitization process involves barcoding/indexing all collections, high-resolution photography of each specimen, transcription of label metadata (taxonomic identification, collector(s), collection date, locality, co-occurring species, site description, and any other notes), and uploading all these data to an open-access data portal: Consortium of Midwest Herbaria (note that we don’t yet have any specimen records uploaded to this site). A separate digitization effort will encompass the bryophytes, whose data will be housed on the Consortium of North American Bryophyte Herbaria.