The answer to this is best summed up by Dr. Peter Raven, Director of the Missouri Botanical Garden, in an address he gave at a Symposium sponsored by Friends of the Jepson Herbarium, University of California Berkeley, 3-5 June 1994.
"Excited by the many new and rapidly growing fields of investigation associated with modern biology, we sometimes forget that it is the actual plants, their ranges and other features, and their status that we need to investigate first.
- Without the continuous acquisition of such knowledge, so fundamental for everything else;
- Without the ability to recognize and distinguish the kinds of organisms;
- Without the careful documentation of what we learn in biological collections,
Nothing else in systematics or evolutionary biology is possible."
-Peter Raven
We don't have staff available to host daily visitations but an appointment can be made for a visit. Please understand that the herbarium is for research & teaching, thus it has neither museum displays nor polished tours.
To make an appointment, contact the Director, Dr. C. Eugene Jones, at 714-278-3548.
We loan specimens to approved educational and research institutions. We do not loan specimens to individuals.
To arrange a loan, contact the Director, Dr. C. Eugene Jones, at 714-278-4232.
Revised