The Hortorium Herbarium is especially strong in Carex, Rubus, Solanum, Cucurbitaceae, Malvaceae, gymnosperms, legumes, bryophytes, and cultivated plants.
It's Palm collection, begun by L. H. Bailey and developed by H. E. Moore, Jr., is one of the largest and most representative collection of Palms in the world, and the Muller Oak Collection is the premier collection of Fagaceae in North America. Approximately one-fifth of our holdings is New York State material, one of the largest accumulations of local flora vouchers for the state. All continents are represented with special strengths in the Americas, Europe, Asia, New Caledonia, Australia, and New Zealand. The Hortorium Herbarium houses collections by the following important botanical collectors: A. L. Andrews, L. H. Bailey, S. H. Burnham, R. T. Clausen, H. Mann, Jr., H. E. Moore, Jr., W. C. Muenscher, C. H. Muller, J. K. Small, and K. M. Wiegand.
The hortorium also hourses an extensive collection of digital plant images (CUBIC, formerly Phytoimages and Plantsystematics.org), and digital plant anatomy images (CUPAC, the Cornell University Plant Anatomy Collection). Additionally, we house the Cornell University Paleobotanical Collection (CUPC), the L.H. Bailey Conservatory, the L.H. Bailey Hortorium Library, and the Ethel Zoe Bailey Horticultural Catalogue Collection.
Special collections
This is the premier collection of Fagaceae (mostly Quercus) in North America, including 10,680 specimens collected and accumulated by Cornelius H. Muller and ca. 12,000 sheets in the Cornell herbaria, making a combined total of over 22,000 specimens. When completely curated, the specimens will be organized geographically.
In 2011, Alfonso Doucette assessed the collection of palm TYPES, listing 342 such collections at BH. This served as a guide for Reveal’s nomenclatural documentation which ultimately included 474 palm types and 2 horticultural standards.
With over 63,000 specimens, the collection has much to offer. An interesting history surrounds the collection, and it has particularly strong holdings of certain bryophyte groups and various geographical regions. Additionally, the bryophyte specimens are complemented by the exquisite original moss illustrations of Georg Roth.
Associated Collections
Of the several hundred books included in the Krikorian-Taylor gift, a few dozen titles were retained for the Hortorium Library. These were mainly antiquarian botanical titles and other books of botanical interest not owned by Cornell University. The remainder (mainly plant physiology titles and books on random other subjects) were donated to the Friends of the Tompkins County Public Library for their book sale.
Literature Database: List of curated papers, books, and journal articles with associated keywords. Many are historical documents. Searchable with links to the material.
Muenscher's Aquatic Seeds of NY (MASNY) is a curated collection of disseminules (seeds, dispersed seminoid fruits such as achenes). There are 100 distinct species in each of two series distributed as sets of 100 labeled (? 1.5 inch) glass vials in a flat case. Sets were distributed to 23 herbaria and seed libraries, but we do not know which ones still retain these sets.
It would appear that Muenscher limited the MASNY collection to relatively small seeds/fruits that would fit into the small vials.
Every sample in the MASNY collection is vouchered with a BH specimen referenced by collector and number.
This project (MASNY) is an SEM atlas of Muenscher's seed collection.
ETHEL ZOE BAILEY HORTICULTURAL CATALOG COLLECTION
About 135,000 items are catalogued and searchable (to some degree) in Cornell University Library catalog. These are stored in clamshell boxes in Mann Special Collections (vault). They are arranged by company name. The cataloguing is not deep, giving the number of items per company and a date range. This cataloguing was done by Mann Library Technical Services staff under the direction of Nancy Banfield, mostly while the collection was at South Hill.
Several thousand more pieces are not in CUL database, as we retained later cats (1980s onward) in BH space. Sherry Vance and (later) Dorothy Stiefel were cataloguing these in Kevin's proprietary database. They are stored in clamshell boxes and gathered by year published (not by company name as with the older material). No cataloguing work has been done on new acquisitions since Dorothy's retirement.
A few thousand duplicate catalogues, mostly mid-20th-C., were donated to the Andersen Horticultural Library shortly after BH returned to Mann Library, when BH had to vacate a basement storage room in Plant Science Bldg.
Ms. Bailey’s cards (~250,000) document the availability of species in the commercial trade over many decades.
There is an extensive collection of seeds for use of study of morphology and ethnobotany. These are prepared on slides, with a focus on weeds and crops, and have been used heavily as a teaching tool in the past.
CUBIC: Cornell University Botanical Image Collection. Collection of botanical images from contributors around the world. Fusion of Phytoimages and PlantSystematics.org which will eventually redirect to CUBIC. Currently holds over 300,000 images. Publicly accessible. This was developed by Kevin Nixon and Daniel Nickrent and has been worked on by a handful of collaborators.
CUPAC (Cornell University Plant Anatomy Collection) is an historically important collection of anatomical slide preparations of a wide array of plant parts. These slides include materials prepared by renowned Cornell Plant Anatomists, both for teaching and publication. Included are slides from the collections of Arthur Eames, Mary Wilde, David W. Bierhorst, Hal Moore and Natalie Uhl; and from other famous plant anatomists such as Katherine Esau, Alpna Johri and Panchanan Maheshwari.
Slides are being imaged by volunteers and undergraduate student workers, and simultaneously barcoded and databased. Post-processing involves automated resizing and labeling as well as magnification calibration that allows online measurement tools to be used as overlays on the images.
CUPC: Cornell University Paleobotanical Collection is a collection of paleobotanical specimens
Cornell's Plant Pathology Herbarium (CUP) is a separate herbarium, devoted primarily to fungi and lichens and not housed with us.
The conservatory is a seperate entity from the herbarium that we collaborate with often. They are located on campus.