The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University will unite their herbaria under the management of the North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, creating the third-largest university herbarium in the country.
The combined collection will include about 1.7 million preserved plant specimens, ranking behind only the herbaria at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley. It will be the largest university herbarium in the southeastern United States.
Herbaria are collections of preserved plant specimens that serve as scientific archives and allow researchers to study biodiversity, long-term climate shifts, invasive species, land-use changes and other changes in plant life across generations.
The North Carolina Botanical Garden already manages the UNC-Chapel Hill Herbarium and focuses on the conservation and study of plants in the southeastern United States. The consolidation is intended to preserve the combined collection and expand access for researchers, curators, students and others.
The specimens also provide physical records that can complement newer research technologies, including artificial intelligence, digitization and DNA sequencing. Scientists can use herbarium specimens to identify species, compare traits and examine how plants have changed over time.
Duke announced plans in 2024 to relocate its herbarium after determining that its outdated facilities would require years of work and cause extensive disruption to the collection. The agreement will allow the Duke collection to remain intact and accessible locally.
The Duke collection initially will be housed on two floors of the former Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center in Chapel Hill. Renovation work has begun, and the collection is expected to move in June 2027.
UNC-Chapel Hill has a long-term plan to build a dedicated Plant Biodiversity Research Center to house both the Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill collections. The UNC collection has exceeded the storage capacity of its campus home at Coker Hall.
The consolidation builds on other partnerships between the universities, including the Robertson Scholars program, the Carolina-Duke Core Partnership in research and the North Carolina Children's Health campus.
The combined herbarium will preserve a scientific legacy dating to 1802 while providing researchers with an extensive record of plant biodiversity in the Southeast. Herbaria can help scientists document how plant species have responded to changing climate conditions, invasive species and changes in land use, supporting efforts to understand and protect plant biodiversity.
Source: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke to combine herbaria, creating the third-largest university plant collection in the United States"