What’s in the Herbarium Cabinet at the Van Buren County Library?

For information about access to the Herbarium archive, please contact director Dr. Don Culwell at 501-358-2095.

It is a collection of dried, pressed plants, each labeled with data including its name, habitat, collector, and date. These 837 plants represent all the vascular plants found growing at South Fork Nature Center that were collected during 2005. The scientific study was undertaken by professional botanists Theo Witsell and Brent Baker at the direction SFNC and the Gates Rogers Foundation.

SEE ALSO:

Ecological Reports from South Fork Nature Center

The botanists visited the site every two weeks of the growing season that year. They collected and recorded a representative specimen of each species they encountered.This created a scientific documentation of all plant populations in the ecosystems of the approximate 120 acre peninsula known as SFNC. These findings of Witsell and Baker were presented before a meeting of the Arkansas Academy of Science (Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science, Vol. 60, 2006); they included a summary of the floristic diversity and descriptions of the plant communities in the study area.

At the time of this study, Witselland Baker’s findings were the most extensive for any piece of land its size found in the state.

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