Skip to content
Botanical Garden Facebook Botanical Garden Instagram Botanical Garden Twitter
North Carolina Botanical Garden
  • Visit
    • Visit
    • North Carolina Botanical Garden
    • Piedmont Nature Trails
    • Battle Park & Forest Theatre
    • Coker Arboretum
    • Mason Farm Biological Reserve
    • Preserves and Natural Areas
    • Events
    • Exhibits
    • Guided Tours
  • Learn
    • Learn
    • Adult Programs
    • Youth & Family Programs
    • School Field Trips
    • Camp Flytrap
  • Outreach
    • Outreach
    • Carolina Community Garden
    • Edible Campus UNC
    • Therapeutic Horticulture
  • Plants
    • Plants
    • NC Wildflower of the Year
    • Ask the Green Gardener
    • Native Plant Sales
    • Native Seed Distribution
    • Resources for Gardeners
    • Pollinator Central
  • Research
    • Research
    • Plant Conservation
    • UNC-CH Herbarium
    • Publications
    • Citizen Science
    • Research Associates
  • Support
    • Support
    • Membership
    • Make a Gift
    • Volunteer
    • Corporate Partners
    • Event Hosts
    • Venus Flytrap License Plate
  • About
    • About
    • NC Botanical Garden Foundation
    • A Conservation Garden
    • Sustainable Practice
    • Rentals & Photography
    • Newsroom
    • Our Staff
    • Jobs & Internships
    • Contact Us
  • Shop
  • Donate

UNC Chapel Hill Herbarium

About the Herbarium Visitation Loan & Accession Policies Floras, Apps & Field Guides Search Herbarium Specimens The Collectors

About the Herbarium

Through its Research Programs, the Garden manages the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Herbarium (NCU), the premier plant and fungi biodiversity collection in the region. With over 800,000 specimens dating from the mid-1800’s, this collection is the definitive resource for plant identification and geographic distribution in the Southeastern United States.  The Herbarium is a key scientific resource that provides data to researchers, land managers, government agencies, conservation organizations, and the public.

Our Collections

An herbarium is a research collection of botanical specimens with associated label data. Our collections include:

  • Fungi and lichenized fungi from around the world, with a focus on specimens from Southeastern United States (ca. 38,000 specimens)
  • Algae from around the world focusing on red marine macroalgae from temperate zones and coralline algae (ca. 53,000 specimens)
  • Vascular plants (ferns, grasses, wildflowers and trees) and non-vascular plants (mosses, hornworts and liverworts) from around the world with a focus on native flora of the Southeastern United States (ca. 750,000 specimens)
  • Fossils focused on the plants of the Devonian (ca. 10,000 specimens)

Herbarium specimens are used…

  • by scientists to describe plant and fungi species new to science
  • by land managers to document current and historical distributions of imperiled plants and fungi 
  • by students to record the flora of parks and public lands
  • by farmers to document new weeds and plant pathogens and to map their spread across our region
  • by horticulturalists to record blooming/fruiting times for seed collection
  • by the public to identify plants and fungi found in yards and natural areas
Support the UNC Herbarium
Give to Friends of the Herbarium
Give to the Herbarium Endowment
Give to the Herbarium Endowment
1908-1998

The History of the UNC Herbarium

Laurie Stewart Radford, curator from 1936 to 1942, wrote seven articles for the 1984-1986 issues of the Friends of the Herbarium newsletter. Each article focused on a specific era in the development of the herbarium. In 1998, she updated the articles and compiled them into a single 50-page history of the NCU Herbarium. This history spans from 1908 (the year in which a formal herbarium was created) until 1998. The document can be viewed in its entirety by selecting Read More below.

Read More

Herbarium Collectors

Herbarium nabs NC’s first voucher specimen of “fossil fungus”

by Van Cotter, Herbarium Research Associate, UNC at CH Herbarium (NCU) and John S. Gibbs, Willow Spring, North Carolina Thanks to the dedicated mycological exploration by the junior author, who is 13 years old and has an avid interest in mycology, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Herbarium (NCU) now has the first…

Read More

Steven Worth Leonard

(b. 1943) The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Herbarium (NCU) curates more than 1,700 vascular plant specimens and about 90 bryophyte specimens collected by Steven Worth Leonard.  As we continue to catalog our collections we will find more specimens collected by him. Most specimens were collected in the United States, particularly in the…

Read More

Francis Joseph LeClair

(21 June 1884 – 11 November 1973) The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Herbarium (NCU) has cataloged about 100 vascular plant specimens collected by Francis J. LeClair. Without doubt more will be found as cataloging of collections continues. LeClair collected specimens throughout the southeastern United States, especially in Bay Minette (Baldwin County, Alabama),…

Read More
VIEW ALL NEWS
Support

Volunteer

Contact

NC Botanical Garden Instagram

@ncbotanicalgarden

North Carolina Botanical Garden
DISPLAY GARDEN HOURS
Tuesday - Saturday, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Sunday, 1 - 5 p.m.
VISIT NCBG
100 Old Mason Farm Road,
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
Get Directions
Visitor Safety
GET IN TOUCH
Phone: 919-962-0522
Fax: 919-962-3531
Contact Us

Subscribe to eNewsletter
Botanical Garden Facebook Botanical Garden Instagram Botanical Garden Twitter Botanical Garden Youtube
© 2021 North Carolina Botanical Garden