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Smith Herbarium
With current holdings of 143,000 specimens, the herbarium represents an important cultural heritage and intellectual trust, and is used extensively for scientific, educational, and resource management purposes. The Garden's herbarium is named in honor of Clifton F. Smith (1920-1999), long-time student of the regional flora and author of A Flora of the Santa Barbara Region, California, published by the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and Capra Press. The herbarium's acronym, designated by the International Association of Plant Taxonomists, is SBBG.
The herbarium collections have a strong representation of areas managed by the Los Padres National Forest, Channel Islands National Park, the California National Guard (Camp Roberts and Camp San Luis Obispo), the U. S. Navy (Point Mugu, San Clemente Island, and San Nicolas Island), and the U. S. Army (Fort Hunter Liggett).
The herbarium includes the principal collections of E. R. (Jim) Blakley (Santa Barbara region), Charis Bratt (California lichens), E. R. Chandler, Hugh and Margaret Dearing (California), Clare Hardham (Santa Lucia Mountains), Ralph Hoffmann (Channel Islands and Mojave Desert), Steven Junak (California Islands), Martin Piehl (Channel Islands), Clifton Smith (Santa Barbara region), and Shirley Tucker (lichens).
In addition to general representation of the California Floristic Province, the herbarium has a strong representation of lichens and vascular plants from the California islands, and a good representation of vascular plants from the Santa Lucia and western Transverse Ranges of the central coast region. Historic and unusual horticultural trees and shrubs in the City of Santa Barbara are also well represented.
The Garden maintains several electronic databases, which provide information on the SBBG herbarium lichen and vascular plant collections, the flora of California, and the flora of the Central Coast Bioregion. You will find these databases in the Resources section of this website.
Loans of specimens are made only to institutions listed in the International Society of Plant Taxonomist's Index Herbariorum. For information on access to and loans from the vascular plant collections, please contact Herbarium Curator Steven Junak. For information on access to and loans from the lichen collections, please contact Research Associate Charis Bratt.
Visitors planning to study specimens in the herbarium should contact Collections Manager Tricia Wardlaw, to make arrangements prior to the visit as space is limited.
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