The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) a National Systematics Research Resource Center, is the country s largest repository of plant and fungal specimens. It is a vast, actively managed, and intensively use collection of more than 5,600,000 specimens representing all plant and fungal groups and is worldwide in scope. Because of the size and richness of the collection, the NYBG Herbarium serves as a primary source of research materials for botanical studies throughout the world. Virtually all major taxonomic revisions of plants of the Americas and parts of the Old World include examination of specimens deposited in the NYBG Herbarium. The New York Botanical Garden Herbarium regularly sends more specimens on loan than any other herbarium in the world. In the past five years, loans of 232,927 specimens were sent to 361 herbaria in 46 foreign countries and 48 states of the USA. An average of 46,585 specimens (677 loans) were sent each year. In these same five years, in the 27 journals surveyed, 1098 articles cite use of NYBG specimens. During this same period, 1158 visiting resea rchers from 66 foreign countries and 39 states of the USA spent 10,644 person-days using the collection. This project will enable the New York Botanical Garden Herbarium to continue its high level of service to the community of botanical researchers and other users of plant information.
