The Pringle Herbarium, a facility of the Botany Department at the University of Vermont, is a fully functional collection currently active as a resource for systematic and floristics research on a regional and international basis. The large collection is fortunately housed in a pleasant and stable facility in Torrey Hall, which is dedicated to systematics collections and classrooms. Facilities at Torrey Hall include space for the collections, work and study space for staff, students, and visiting scientists.
The Herbarium is fortunate to have a strong associated library specializing in systematics and floristics, with an emphasis on ferns. Major recent donations bring the lirary to some 1500 volumes, and the library facility includes seminar and study space for herbarium-related activities.
| Images of the current facility | Current Collection Layout (Case locations) |
| Pringle Article in the View | Cyrus Pringle Biography |
| Tryon Pteridophyte Library |
Pringle's Arizona Plants 1881-1884 |
CONTACT THE HERBARIUM
Contact: Dave Barrington, Director, to request loans for study, information about the collection, plant identification, problems with tne collection database, or other services.
E-Mail Address: david.barrington@uvm.edu
THE PRINGLE HERBARIUM ON-LINE DATABASE
Thanks to the efforts of Dorothy Allard, the pilot version of our new searchable database is now available HERE [Sept. 2009]; we are continuing a major effort to restructure and present our specimen data in coordination with the Consortium of Northeast Herbaria and U.S. Virtual Herbarium project. This database so far contains only the following: 1. North American Cupressaceae. 2. The pilot dataset for the Consortium of New England Herbarria (Celastrus and Epipactis), and a token set of polystichums.
Please report problems to Dorothy at djallard@uvm.edu.
The collection currently includes over 270,000 sheets of mounted and accessioned plants; it is the third largest herbarium in New England. Central to the herbarium are the extensive Mexican collections of its namesake, Cyrus G. Pringle (1838-1911). Pringle's aggressive exchange program with a suite of approximately two dozen international and national herbaria between 1885-1911 brought a large geographically and taxonomically diverse representation of the world flora to the herbarium. Pringle's unusually rich exchange materials, including many isotypes from his pioneering explorations in northern Latin America and southwestern United States, led exchange partners to send unusually choice materials, for example the set of Sellow collections from the beginning of European exploration of Brazil sent by the herbarium at Berlin. The current director's emphasis on and research cooperation with Latin American herbaria derives from this early emphasis of Pringle's. At the same time, the herbarium is naturally enough the definitive repository for the flora of Vermont, including the largest Vermont flora collection in the world. Vermont's climatic and edaphic diversity has interested a community of plant floristicians and collectors for well over a century; the herbarium houses all of the major collections from the state, including the notable early herbaria of Penniman (ca. 1815) and Joseph Torrey, botanist and a president of this University (1840s). Recent activity has expanded the older collections of Pringle and others to build an extensive representation of the North American flora, and the institution has significant collections representing every continent except Antarctica. Currently we have an exchange program with 18 herbaria worldwide, and loans continue on an average of 7.6 loans of 359 specimens per year to herbaria across the United States and around the world.
The University of Vermont and its College of Agriculture and Life Sciences recognize the Pringle Herbarium as a critical resource for research activity in systematics and plant diversity studies. It serves as both a center for systematic and floristic research at the University and as a frequently used resource for visitors and correspondents. Two practicing plant systematists are housed at the herbarium (Dave Barrington and Cathy Paris). In addition, one of the foremost floristicians in the state, Elizabeth Thompson, is housed at VT. Two graduate students in the Barrington-Paris lab are also housed at the collection site in Torrey Hall. Interest from the plant systematics community largely centers on the two major emphases of the collections: northern Latin America and Vermont. We have a record of extensive loan activity and visitation from specialists in floristics and systematics of Neotropical, especially Mexican and Brazilian groups. This interest stems from the critical early holdings in the collection, especially type materials and archival holdings of Pringle and other Neotropical collectors.
Vermont has a strong community of professional workers specializing
in documenting the diversity and distribution of the regional
flora, which derives from the state's longstanding reputation
as a pacesetter in the development of sound environmental policy.
VT has had an increasing role in coordinating the efforts of the
natural resources planning community with the mission of the herbarium.
The herbarium benefits from the regular consultation of the collections
by this group and by stimulating and expediting the deposit of
specimens documenting floristic distribution and biotic variation.
The herbarium also serves as the meeting place for the Scientific
Advisory Committee on Flora (a key statutory advisory group to
the rare and endangered species committee of the state). In addition
it serves as the central systematics and floristics resource for
the state.
The Pringle Herbarium occupies 3.600 square feet on three floors of Joseph Torrey Hall, at the north end of the campus of the University of Vermont on Colchester Avenue. Torrey Hall was constructed in 1865 as the University's third library. Considered one of the architectural treasures of the University, it is a substantial three-story brick building with mansard roof. The collection has been in its current location since 1975. The building is and is likely to remain dedicated to the University's natural history research collections, as it also houses the vertebrate and invertebrate collections. The collection-processing area for the Pringle Herbarium and the Botanical Library occupy the second floor; while the bulk of the collection is located on the third floor. Research space for the staff and graduate students is also located on the second floor.
| 242,600 | vascular plant sheets |
| 31,000 | non-vascular plant sheets, packets, etc. |
| 10,100 | unmounted specimens in cabinets |
| 26,700 | unmounted specimens in boxes |
| 310,400 | TOTAL plants in the herbarium |
| 16,000 Pteridophytes | 2,900 Algae |
| 3,800 Gymnosperms | 4,300 Lichens |
|
222,800 Angiosperms, including:
|
11,300 Fungi |
| 12,500 Bryophytes | |
| 242,600 TOTAL vascular plant sheets | 31,000 TOTAL non-vascular plants |
| Vermont | 22% |
| U.S. and Canada (except Vermont) | 36% |
| Mexico | 14% |
| Latin America (except Mexico) | 9% |
| Europe | 10% |
| Africa | 4% |
| Asia | 2% |
| Australia & Oceania | 3% |
The Pringle Herbarium is the University herbarium for the University of Vermont (UVM). As such, it is about 160 years old reckoning the first accessions to be those made by Joseph Torrey in the 1840s. The collection became a large and active resource through the efforts of the first University herbarium director, Cyrus Pringle, beginning in 1902. Since then, the collection has been developed through the activities of three chairs of the Department of Botany who were systematists and served as herbarium directors: these are L.R.Jones (1930s), H.W.Vogelmann (1950s to 1970s), and D.S.Barrington (1970s - 2001). The current chair of the Botany Department, Tom Vogelmann, is also deeply invested in developing the Pringle Herbarium's utility as a resource. Materials in the collection have been improved through a combination of activities by the curators, most importantly exchange, personal collections, and collections received as gifts and purchases.
In the following sections, the collections needing substantial work to fully accession are marked with an asterisk. Sequence is generally by date of first incorporation.
The Collections of Cyrus Guernsey Pringle: Cyrus Guernsey Pringle is the most significant contributor to VT. He began his collections of Vermont's flora in the early 1870s. Pringle became acquainted with Asa Gray of Harvard University and Edward Tuckerman of Amherst College for whom he began collecting plants. Gray also sparked his interest in exchanges of sheets both with local and distant collectors. In addition, Charles James Sprague of the Boston Natural History Society requested Pringle to collect lichens, and Dr. Peck asked him to collect fungi. In 1880 he discontinued collecting in the Northeast and began three simultaneous commissions given him for work in the southwestern U.S. and the Pacific Slope. These were 1) to obtain wood specimens for the completion of the Jessup collection for the American Museum of Natural History 2) to make general collections under Asa Gray's direction and 3) to collect botanical data on the forests in that region for the U.S. Census Dept. These projects continued over the next four years.
In 1885, through a combination of funding from the Harvard Botanical Museum and the Gray Herbarium, Pringle was hired to begin cataloguing the plants of Mexico, because little botanical work had ever been done there. This work would continue over next 26 years, years in which he ended up botanizing 21 of the 27 states of Mexico. On his trips to and from Mexico, Pringle always made a point to take different routes; he was thus able to further enrich his collections as he passed through a diversity of terrains in both the U.S. and Mexico.
By the time Pringle passed away in 1911, the botanical work he had done was astounding. He had distributed to various herbaria (including his own, VT) some 500,000 sheets of about 20,000 species. These include 29 genera new to science, 1,200 new species, 100 new varieties, and four new combinations, more than almost any other collector anywhere. At the time of his death, VT included approximately 155,000 sheets, a combination of his own collections and the rich diversity of materials he received in exchange. Among the institutions from which Pringle received exchange materials are the British Museum, Berlin, Kew Gardens, Edinburgh, Melbourne, Calcutta; also French, Swiss, South African, and Austrian herbaria.
A précis of Pringle's other life, as a conscientious objector in the Civil War
Frederick Sellow (Berlin Herbarium) Collection and Allied Materials: Perhaps the most important exchange program Pringle maintained was with the herbarium at Berlin-Dalhem. As a result, a substantial set (we estimate it to be ca. 3000 sheets) of materials of significant German collectors, especially from the New World tropics, are maintained in the collection. The destruction of the floweing-plant section of the herbarium at Berlin in World War II makes these collections particularly significant. Prominent among these collections is a substantial set of collections made by Sellow, who was among the first Europeans to collect in Brazil (ca. 1815). His collections in particular are regularly requested. Other notable early collectors from tropical America include Buchtien, Wright, and Palmer.
Frost Herbarium: Charles Frost was a mycologist who was active in the Brattleboro, Vermont area in the 1840s. He was an early and important student on eastern North American fungi, especially the boletes. His collection of about 2,000 specimens is housed entirely at VT: it is one of the few herbaria that remain separated from the main collection, as it is housed in a historically valuable manner - in the small dry-goods boxes left over from Frost's primary employment as a shoemaker.
The Brainerd Collection (Middlebury College Herbarium): Ezra Brainerd, sometime president of Middlebury College, was a plant systematist specializing in the difficult genera Crateagus, Viola, and Rubus. The vouchers for his research on these genera, along with a high-quality general herbarium from New England and New York, formed the basis for the Middlebury College herbarium. In 1950 Middlebury College transferred 3000 sheets, including all of Brainerd's collections and about 100 types, to VT.
Nellie F. Flynn Collection (Goddard College Herbarium): Nellie Flynn was a prominent Vermont botanist and author of a revision of the Flora of Vermont; she was active in the early 1900s. She assembled an impressive collection of plants from the Burlington, Vermont area, and at the suggestion of L.R.Jones wrote the Flora of Burlington and Vicinity: A List of the Fern and Seed Plants Growing Without Cultivation. She was an invested and productive plant collector, documenting not only the local flora but assembling collections from Canada, Massachusetts, North and South Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Cuba, the Bahamas, Switzerland, England, France, Morocco and Italy. Her collections from Nantucket, Massachusetts are among her largest and serve as baseline information for stewardship and systematic work on the Sand Islands at the Wisconsin terminal moraine. In 1956 VT acquired the Nellie Flynn Herbarium holdings from Goddard College as a permanent loan. This increased the holdings of VT by another 22,700 specimens.
Frank C. Seymour Collection: Frank Seymour, attracted to the Pringle Herbarium by H.W. Vogelmann, was curator to VT from 1967 to 1973. A prodigious collector, he solidified the herbarium's twin specializations on tropical American and Vermont flora with extensive collections from across Northern New England and Central America. In the course of his major revision of The Flora of Vermont (4th edition) he documented the distribution of the majority of the species known from Vermont. Seymour was also instrumental in bringing the collection from its earlier disarray into a cohesive and integrated herbarium. In his time at VT he added 15,700 sheets.
Leopold A. Charette Collection: Leopold Charette served as assistant curator to Vogelmann and Seymour from the late 1950s through 1970. During his tenure, he made substantial collections in Japan and China (VT holds ca. 5300 of his sheets); he also developed an exchange program to accession a diverse set of additional plants from the same region. Charette was equally important in the task of making most of the sheets in VT accessible and available for study. We are indebted to Mr. Charette for organizing the voluminous Pringle archival materials as well.
Bates College Herbarium: In 1981 VT purchased the herbarium collection from Bates College (acronym BCL), an acquisition of about 4,000 sheets. A substantial portion of this collection has since been integrated into VT. The Bates collection includes documentation of the flora of Maine as well as apparent exchange materials from the Gray Herbarium and the New York Botanical Gardens. It also has strong representation of the European flora.
Peter F. Zika Collection: Peter Zika received his undergraduate degree in botany at the University of Vermont in 1983. He is currently a botanist for the Bureau of Land Management in Oregon. During his time as an undergraduate and in the several years thereafter he made a substantial investment in documenting and improving our collections of the Vermont flora. His original interest was in the alpine flora: he was the first person since Pringle to certify the occurrence of many of the rarer species at high altitudes in Vermont. His interests broadened to include the flora of the entire state, and working together with Jerry Jenkins, a productive consultant systematist here, has developed a high-quality checklist for the flora of Vermont based on modern circumscription of species. This work continues to be an interest of Zikaís in spite of his geographical separation from us. There are some 7500 sheets of mounted Zika material at the herbarium and an additional 2000 awaiting accession.
Steven R. Hill Collection: Dr. Steven R. Hill is a botanist with the Illinois Natural History Survey with research interests in the systematics of the Malvaceae, the flora of Dominica and the Lesser Antilles, the floristics of the eastern U.S. and the threatened and endangered vascular plants of Illinois. He has held several herbarium positions, including positions as Curator of the Herbarium at the University of Maryland (MARY) and Clemson University (CLEMS). Dr. Hill is an extraordinarily active collector in an era of decreased emphasis on documenting flora, with over 35,000 lifetime numbers. He has chosen the Pringle Herbarium as the permanent repository for The Hill Herbarium (srh), which has already led to adding substantially (20,000+) to our New World temperate and tropical holdings with recent high-quality documentation of the flora from throughout the region. Dr. Hill has expressed a desire to donate his extensive library and remaining collections to our herbarium.
Other Collections: Numerous smaller collections, especially of Vermont botanists, have been incorporated into the Pringle Herbarium, including materials from Barrington (complete), Maude Chisholm, Hugo Churchill (complete), Conzatti, Dutton, Eggleston, Fernald, Arthur Gilman, L.R. Jones, Munroe, Henry Perkins, Henry Potter (complete), A.J. Sharp, H.H. Smith, Elizabeth Thompson, and Vogelmann.
The Pringle Herbarium houses the back issues of Rhodora: the Journal of the New England Botanical Club.