CSU View: Herbarium Turns 10

CSU View:

By Jan Joslin / Photos by Ty Cornett

It’s been 10 years since the Charleston Southern Herbarium was registered with the New York Botanical Garden.

Curator Kevin Jones says the herbarium started as a project of Dr. Jim Barrier and Professor Steve Best in 1994. In recent years, Jones has worked with students and research assistants in his Plant Taxonomy class to expand the collection, focusing in the past 10 years on the undeveloped parts of the campus.

Housing approximately 3,000 specimens today, the collection includes some unusual mosses, orchid species, some invasive species, a parasitic plant which grows on the roots of trees and can only be seen while blooming, and much more. Jones said it has been a few semesters since students have found something the collection didn’t already have.

The CSU Herbarium is housed in Jones’s office in specially designed storage in the Science building.

Professor Kevin Jones in the CSU greenhouse

CSU Herbarium Celebrates 10 Year Anniversary

Perilla, belongs to the mint family Dendrobium, a fairly common orchid

Cape Sundew Venus flytrap

Popcorn tree or Chinese tallow tree

Fun Fact:

Professor Jones has hosted the Coastal Carolina Orchid Society meetings at CSU since 2011.

Spathyglottis, or bog orchid