UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke are coming together to create one of the largest plant collections in the United States.
The universities are combining their herbaria, collections of preserved plant specimens that serve as irreplaceable scientific archives. According to a UNC-Chapel Hill release, researchers use herbaria to study biodiversity, long-term climate shifts, invasive species and other changes in plant life across generations.
The combined collection, the largest in the SE, will include about 1.7 million specimens, making it the third-largest herbarium in the country, behind Harvard and Cal Berkeley. The collection will be managed by the N.C. Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill. The Garden already manages the UNC collection.