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About the MBLWHOI Library Herbarium
 The MBLWHOI Library Herbarium, originally part of the George M. Gray Museum, documents the flora of Cape Cod, Massachusetts and associated coastal islands. The collection contains approximately 7000 vascular and 1000 non-vascular plant specimens. The vascular plant collection, representing Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket Counties, dates back to 1900. Major contributions were made in the early 1900's by three eminent Pennsylvania botanists. Francis Whittier Pennell came to the MBL in the summer of 1911 upon graduation from the University of Pennsylvania and put hundreds of sheets into the vascular plant herbarium. Pennell later became head of the Botany Department of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. John Milton Fogg, Jr., who wrote his Ph.D. thesis on the flora of the Elizabeth Islands (1930) under Harvard botanist M.L. Fernald, contributed many beautifully made sheets from those islands and from Falmouth. Edwin T. Moul, Professor of Botany at Rutgers University and a specialist in the study of coastal wetlands plants, made contributions over several decades. Significant acquisitions resulted from the 1923 and 1947 Penikese Island surveys by Fogg and Moul respectively. About 14 percent of the vascular herbarium comprises collections made in the latter part of the century. Local amateur and professional botanists, engaged in inventories of critical wildlife and plant habitats, contributed several hundred specimens. Another important accession was a gift of 500 sheets of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard specimens from the New England Botanical Club Herbarium at Harvard University. Dr. Richard H. Backus, Herbarium Curator Emeritus, contributed much of the most recent material and spearheaded the 1999 Penikese Island Survey, which yielded about 400 new sheets.
 The non-vascular collection consists primarily of marine algae from the eastern coast of the United States, though other locations are represented. Local mosses, lichens and liverworts are also included. The oldest sheets date back to the 1870's. Contributors include such eminent phycologists as W.R. Taylor, F.S. Collins and W.G. Farlow. David Starr Jordan contributed many algal specimens as a result of the 1873 Penikese Island Survey.
To quote Dr. Backus, the botanical record contained within the MBLWHOI Library Herbarium plays a vital role "in helping to document floral and environmental changes and in locating and protecting rare plants and their habitats." Interestingly, most of Massachusetts' rare plants occur on Cape Cod or in the Connecticut River Valley. The Herbarium has a critical mission given the global significance and rarity of certain plant communities on Cape Cod and the Islands.
Supported by a grant from the WHOI Sea Grant Program, the MBLWHOI Library is digitizing and cataloging the entire herbarium collection of more than 8,000 specimens. The MBLWHOI Library Digital Herbarium is a fully searchable, online database of specimen images and associated data.
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