Botany Collections Overview

Vascular Plants

The Museum's Vascular Plant Collections are fully digitized with more than 107,000 records. Over 50% of specimens are from Wisconsin and 30% from the rest of North America. The collections feature good representation of the flora of the Upper Midwest and adequate samples of taxa worldwide.

Angiosperms (flowering plants) 97,000 records; 33 type specimens.
Special collections:

  • Albert M. Fuller Collection of Rubus 3,442 records; mainly Eastern U. S.; 4 type specimens.
  • Emil P. Kruschke Collection of Crataegus; 3,280 records; mainly Upper Midwest; 21 type specimens.
  • Huron H. Smith Ethnobotanical Collection 1,694 records. Voucher material from Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Meskwaki, Ojibwe, Oneida, and Potawatomi Indians gathered in the 1920s. This important and historical collection has been conserved and rehoused through an IMLS grant in 2006-2008. The entire collection including fieldnotes, publications, and pictures are available on our Huron H. Smith Ethnobotany Collection pages.
  • Charles E. Monroe Collection of Aster and Viola of Eastern U.S.; ca. 20,000 sheets; 5 type specimens.
  • Herman Hayward’s Black Hills plants.
  • William Tan’s inventory collection from Wisconsin State Natural Areas.
  • Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission’s inventory of natural areas.

Gymnosperms (conifers) 1,170 records

Pteridophytes (ferns) 7,887 records; 12 type specimens; good representation of Isoetes, neotropical ferns from Costa Rica, and voucher specimens for MPM Publication “Arkansas Ferns and Fern Allies” by W. Carl Taylor. 1984.

Nonvascular Plants

The Nonvascular Plant Collections are fully digitized and contain ca. 17,000 records. They include:

Algae including cyanobacteria 211 records; mostly marine algae mounted on herbarium sheets.

Fungi including Myxomycetes (slime molds) 4,790 records.

Bryophytes (mosses, liverworts and hornworts) 9,004 records; 13 type specimens;
Important and historical collections:

  • John T. Curtis Carroll College Collection. 1,033 specimens.
  • Z. Iwatsuki & M. Mizutani's Bryophyta Exsiccata. Complete set, mostly Japanese Bryophytes.
  • J. M. Holzinger's Musci acrocarpi Boreali-Americani. Partial set.
  • Warren H. (Herb) Wagner Cryptogamen-herbarium.
  • Richard Spruce Musci Amazonici et Andini. Partial set

Lichens 3,090 records; 12 type specimens; small historical collection by Increase A. Lapham.

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