The Plant Resources Center (PRC) of the University of Texas includes the University of Texas Herbarium and most of the herbarium of C.L. Lundell. The Plant Resources Center is also the site of a number of research programs that involve the production of floras and monographic treatments of a wide range of plant groups. Over the last 15 years, the number of specimens in the Plant Resources Center has increased from 300,000 to 950,000. Moreover, the PRC, in conjunction with the Botany Department of the University of Texas carries out an extensive program for the training of plant systematists. During the next three years, the PRC will receive the remainder of the Lundell collection, about 65,000 specimens, including important type material. In addition to the Lundell material itself, the PRC will receive, during the next several years, over 75,000 specimens owed the Lundell Herbarium in exchange (these will now come to the PRC). Because of the influx of new material, the PRC has requested additional herbarium personnel, cases to house new material, and computer equipment for keeping records and for the initiation of a register of type material now housed in the PRC. At the same time the Lundell material is being incorporated into the PRC, the lower plants and grasses, still housed in the Biological Laboratories will be moved to the Main Building, thereby joining the entire collection for the first time since 1975. The University of Texas has promised the PRC an additional 5,000 sq. ft. of space for the new material. The unification of the PRC and the acquisition of the Lundell material will place the combined Texas-Lundell Herbarium in the top ten herbaria in the country in terms of specimens, and assure that the PRC and the Department of Botany of The University of Texas continue to be a leading research and teaching institution of evolutionary and systematic biology.
