The Plant Resources Center of the University of Texas contains over one million specimens and 4,600 type specimens. The Center is one of the most active research herbariums in the world, and one of the premier repositories of plant specimens from the southwest U.S., Mexico, and Central America. Several smaller herbarium collections have been absorbed into the Plant Resources Center during recent years, and the University of Texas has provided newly renovated space to accommodate this growth. Dr. Beryl Simpson, Director of the Center, is overseeing the final stages of transferring the collections into new quarters. The proposed relocation and reorganization of the collections will make valuable research resources more accessible to the botanical community. Natural history collections such as the Plant Resources Center are indispensable tools for research into the diversity of life on Earth. The continued growth and improvement of these collections will be critical if future generations of systematists, ecologists, biogeographers, and investigators from diverse other disciplines are to have the essential resources for their research.
