Scientists from the Illinois Natural History Survey and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources have updated the state conservation status ranks, or S-ranks, of threatened and endangered plants in Illinois. The update includes some plants not recorded in the state for decades and finds many that, while still threatened, are doing better than previously thought.
Read the full story from the News Bureau.
If you’re near the ACES Library on campus, stop by and see the mushroom exhibit. The fungi are from the mycological collections of the Illinois Natural History Survey.
There is never a shortage of projects or tasks that need to be done when working in a herbarium. I’ve said many times that if we never received another new specimen, I’d still be busy for at least the next 5 years, and this will probably still be true in years to follow.
Continue reading “Thank You, Volunteers!”This past weekend, Oct. 19-20, we held our 3rd Annual WeDigBio event. WeDigBio or Worldwide Engagement for Digitizing Biocollections is a worldwide citizen science event that mobilizes volunteers to transcribe dark label data on biological collections onto a globally accessible platform.
The event started with some details about our collections and volunteer training.
After becoming transcription experts, the volunteers started transcribing.
Throughout the event, volunteers played games and won prizes from local businesses!
Not pictured were prizes won from Jupiter’s and Brainstorm Escapes
The weekend transcription blitz ended with nearly 2600 records transcribed!
The INHS Herbarium would like to thank all of the volunteers who came to the 2018 WeDigBio at Illinois and the wonderful local businesses who showed their support.
We are gearing up for our citizen science event, WeDigBio 2018. The event will be held on October 19-20. Watch for more details in the coming weeks and for information on how to sign up.
We recently received a large donation of vascular plants from Mark Basinger. So far, this includes material collected in Hawaii, Alaska, the Carolinas, Alabama, Georgia, West Virginia, as well as Illinois. As I’ve been accessioning them into our herbarium, I’ve been enjoying the added diversity of what we currently have in our collection and the unique qualities of each pressed plant. Normally, I don’t get the chance to mount and accession material, so I’m enjoying this chance to really look at this material. This is one of my favorites from this week. Sabatia campanulata (L.) Torrey, a member of the Gentian family, collected in North Carolina.
Follow @INHSherbarium on social media to see photos of spring woodland wildflowers from our collection!