THE  GRAY  HERBARIUM  OF  HARVARD 
UNIVERSITY 
Extent  of  the  Collection. — The  Herbarium,  now  including  more 
than  650,000  specimens  of  plants,  was  founded  and  largely  developed 
through  the  untiring  efforts  of  Dr.  Asa  Gray.  It  has  for  many  years 
been  the  most  valuable  collection  of  its  land  in  America,  and  has 
contributed,  through  the  publications  of  its  staff,  more  than  any  other 
establishment  to  the  knowledge  of  American  plants. 
Scientific  Services.  —  It  is  one  of  the  regular  duties  of  the 
Herbarium  staff  to  answer  gratuitously  botanical  questions  received, 
and  to  give  an  expert  opinion  upon  the  identity  of  plants  submitted 
to  it.  In  this  way  the  Herbarium  renders  valuable  service  in  the 
various  branches  of  economic  and  applied  botany,  such  as  pharmacy, 
horticulture,  agriculture,  and  forestry,  since  in  all  these  branches  an 
accurate  classification  of  plants  is  of  great  importance. 
Constant  Growth  of  the  Collection.  —  In  order  to  keep  abreast 
with  the  present  rapid  advance  of  botanical  exploration  it  is  necessary 
to  add  annually  a  large  number  of  carefully  classified  specimens  to 
the  Herbarium.  Each  year  new  regions  are  explored  botanic  ally 
and  important  sets  of  specimens  are  sold  by  the  collectors.  These 
sets,  including  the  types  of  many  new  species,  must  be  acquired 
when  offered  for  sale,  if  at  all,  since  they  are  quickly  taken  up  by 
large  herbaria.  Should  the  Gray  Herbarium  be  unable  to  secure 
such  sets  of  specimens,  it  would  suffer  the  same  irreparable  loss  as  a 
library  which  is  obliged  temporarily  to  suspend  its  purchases  of 
restricted  editions. 
Research  and  Exploration.  — Investigations  of  the  Gray  Her¬ 
barium  staff  have  in  recent  years  extended  from  Labrador  to  Brazil 
and  have  comprehended  a  vast  range  of  material  from  such  diverse 
regions  as  Newfoundland,  Sable  Island,  the  Magdalens,  Nova  Scotia, 
Quebec,  Idaho,  Southern  California,  Mexico,  Colombia,  Venezuela, 
Curacao,  British,  Dutch  and  French  Guiana,  Ecuador,  Bolivia,  and 
Peru,  as  well  as  Angola  and  Kenya  Colony  in  tropical  Africa.  All 
these  regions  have  yielded  their  quota  of  plants  new  to  science  and 
other  discoveries  often  of  practical  as  well  as  theoretical  importance. 
Intensive  work  on  regions  near-  at  hand  has  resulted  in  discoveries 
even  more  striking  since  in  fields  which  had  been  thought  exhausted. 
