The Jason Swallen Herbarium

Curator
Dr. Nancy Murray

About the Herbarium

The herbarium (botanical museum) on campus is housed in Room 250 of the Conrades-Wetherell Science Center. It contains approximately 16,000 pressed and dried plant specimens, many of them dating back to the 1800s. Today the collection is actively used in teaching botany courses and for student research. New specimens have been recently added through University-sponsored field projects in Brazil, Cuba, Tanzania and Thailand. The long-term care of the collection has been secured through the generosity of the late Jason Swallen ('24), who provided an endowment primarily devoted to this purpose. The collection has been named the Jason Swallen Herbarium in memory of his gift and his outstanding contributions to the field of plant taxonomy. Dr. Swallen spent his scientific career working at the Smithsonian Institution, where he served as Head of the Botany Division. He became a world expert on the identification and classification of tropical grasses, naming and describing over 500 new species. Recently, the herbarium was reorganized by Dr. Nancy Murray, and now houses numerous plant specimens native to Delaware County, as well as specimens from South America, Africa, and Asia.