Tree Today, Gone Tomorrow

Herbarium specimens provide a record of our natural history. With the information on these labels, we can reconstruct the habitat of plants through history.

If we can find the locations described on these labels, we can return there to determine what community of plants lives there today.

Trees are a great candidate for this kind of analysis, because only a small part of the plant is collected, and the rest continues growing.

This cottonwood specimen was collected on a roadside in Texas.

This sabal palm tree was growing on a roadside near Houston when it was collected in 1950.

It's rare to see photographs on a specimen, but in this case a photograph documents the live plant growing in its environment.

In some cases, the original locality can't be found.

The label on this specimen is too vague, and uses geographic names that don't match today's maps.

This picture and specimen show the plant as it grew in 1941, wherever it was.

In other cases, an entire species of tree has been lost. This specimen represents Quercus tardifolia, commonly known as Lateleaf Oak or Chisos Mountain Oak.

Recent expeditions did not find this individual tree, or any members of this species.