The UCSB Herbarium is housed at the Cheadle Center and is composed of nearly 250,000 specimens of terrestrial and marine taxa. Major collections include vascular plants, macroalgae (seaweeds), lichens, the plant anatomy collections of Vernon I. Cheadle and Katherine Esau, and the Albert L. Brigger and Robert W. Holmes diatom collections.
Citing these Collections
The Herbarium Collections and their data can be accessed through the Symbiota portals of the Consortium of California Herbarium (CCH2), the Macroalgal Herbarium Portal, and the Consortium of North American Lichen Herbarium, and through additional portals of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and iDigBio. If utilizing the data from the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration please cite the source of the data using the citation below and also include the GBIF download citation when applicable
Citation:
UC Santa Barbara Invertebrate Zoology Collection. Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration, University of California, Santa Barbara. Accessed on [todays date] Occurrence dataset (ID: b03a3f0c-bfa5-4e02-b5d3-56ff38626302)
Vascular Plant Collection
The UCSB Herbarium contains nearly 100,000 specimens, half of which have been digitized in the Consortium of California Herbaria database (https://www.cch2.org). The collections represent an important floristic record from Santa Barbara County and the Northern Channel Islands, as well as other areas from North America and Mexico. There is a large collection of Western North American and Mexican oaks (Quercus) made by Cornelius H. Muller who founded the herbarium in the 1940s. The Quercus collection is rich in type specimens, with approximately 500 types acquired from European herbaria by Muller in the 1960s. The herbarium also archives the John R. Haller Pine Collection, an extensive collection of Pinus from Western North America. In addition to a broad floristic representation of the Santa Barbara region, the herbarium has many voucher specimens from floristic inventories and other studies from California.
Vernon I. Cheadle and Katherine Esau Botanical Anatomy Collections
Over 5,000 bottles of fluid-preserved specimens of ferns, gymnosperms, monocotyledons, and dicotyledons from Cuba, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and the United States comprise the majority of the botanical anatomy collection. Nearly 64,000 microscope slides prepared from these specimens compliment and support the preserved collection. The collections also include a phloem slide collection and supporting data of over 1,100 slides jointly prepared by Cheadle and Esau. This collection of beautifully prepared and stained microscope slides represents research conducted at UC Davis during 1950 and 1951 by Cheadle and Esau on the secondary phloem of dicotyledons. This collection is composed of 119 families, representing 342 genera.
Macroalgae Collection
The macroalgae, or seaweed, collection contains approximately 10,000 specimens from the Pacific Coast of North America and the Channel Islands, all digitized in the Symbiota Macroalgal Herbarium Consortium database. An additional 10,000 specimens from around the globe are awaiting digitization. The macroalgae collection is rich in historical specimens representing the first seaweeds collected and described from California. Important collectors include Elmer Yale Dawson, Nathaniel Lyon Gardner, Valentine J. Chapman, David J. Chapman, Lorenzo Gordin Yates, and James W. Markham. The macroalgae collection supports marine biology research at UC Santa Barbara. The collection has many vouchers from the Santa Barbara Coastal Long Term Ecological Research transect and an inventory of Santa Cruz Island.
The Shirley C. Tucker Lichen Collection
The UCSB Herbarium has a collection of nearly 2,000 lichen specimens, of which more than 1,000 have been digitized in the Consortium of Lichen Herbaria (https://lichenportal.org). The Shirley C. Tucker Lichen Collection contains specimens commonly encountered in the Santa Barbara region, as well as many additional collections from North America. Most specimens were collected and donated by Shirley C. Tucker, curator emerita of the lichen collection.
Brigger and Holmes Diatom Collection
The Albert L. Brigger and Robert W. Holmes Diatom Collection consists of diatom specimens, slides, photographs, approximately 300 volumes from Brigger's personal library, and the extensive research collections of Holmes. The Holmes collection contains approximately 5,000 slides, 700 samples, and 500 light and scanning electron microscope images. Robert Holmes's main research interests were the description of diatoms from cetaceans, the diatoms on diving seabirds, and the use of diatoms as a tool for paleoenvironmental reconstruction of Sierra Nevada lakes. Holmes also studied the variability of the genus Cocconeis and the Aulacodiscus kittonii group.