Missouri Botanical Garden

The Missouri Botanical Garden will digitize and create an online public display of the Engelmann Herbarium of plant specimens. The approximately 8,000 specimens gathered during pioneering expeditions into the American West following those of Lewis and Clark are the first scientific records of the plants growing in the vast wilderness west of the Mississippi River. The collection forms the earliest verifiable documentation of species occurrences in that pristine landscape, before the rapid migration west permanently altered the landscape through human introduction of non-native invasive species. These specimens will provide a historic complement to the 3.6 million specimens already accessible through Tropicos, the Missouri Botanical Garden’s botanical information system.