New Expedition: Little Bells!

The Herbarium of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill seeks Citizen Scientists!

The Herbarium is a Department of the North Carolina Botanical Garden within the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Our vascular plant collection is world-wide in scope, and focuses on the native flora of the Southeastern United States. Approximately 450,000 of our ca. 600,000 specimens will be imaged & databased for THE KEY TO THE CABINETS: BUILDING & SUSTAINING A RESEARCH DATABASE FOR A GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOT project (aka SERNEC), funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. The herbarium also curates plant fossils (esp. Devonian Period collections of Patricia Gensel), fungi (esp. collections of W.C. Coker, J.N. Couch, A.B. Seymour), lichens (esp. collections of Gary Perlmutter), bryophytes, and algae (esp. red marine algae of temperate zones and collections of Max Hommersand & Paul Gabrielson).

Our herbarium’s first expedition for citizen scientists is to the world of Campanulaceae (“little bell” in Latin), a family of about 80 genera and 2,400 species worldwide.  In North America the family includes garden favorites Lobelias, Bellflowers, and Harebells.  As our Expedition photo notes, the Campanulaceae are nectar sources for pollinators such as native bumblebees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

Thank you ahead of time for joining us on this mapping journey!