History

Many of the earliest ASU plant collections were made by Fred Irish, an Iowa transplant hired as the first science teacher at what was then Tempe Normal School. Irish collections (~1900) represent some of the most historically important vouchers of the Salt River Valley and give us insight into the profound environmental changes that have occurred since then.  The ASU Herbarium also has a number of historical collections from other important Arizona figures such as J. J. Thornber, C. W. McClellan, and J. J. Stitt.

Some Fred Irish collections circa 1900

A Fred Irish Botany class in 1903 - studying the Arizona flora

Irish retired from teaching and moved into administration in the late 20’s and the collection of herbarium specimens was subsequently overseen by such faculty as John Gillespie (30’s), Martin Mortensen (30’s-40’s), James McCleary (40’s-early 60’s) and Norman Russell (early 60’s).  The collection grew modestly from the 30’s to the early 60’s with contributions from these botany professors and other ASU faculty in the life sciences.

In 1962 Elinor Lehto was hired as Curator and continued in this role until 1980. Dr. Donald Pinkava, an Ohio transplant, was brought on in 1964 as Director and it was during the Pinkava/Lehto era that the ASU Herbarium grew significantly in number of collections and importance. During Pinkava’s tenure as Director, the herbarium grew from a few thousand specimens to over 250,000 and an exceptional collection of Cactaceae and cytological vouchers was amassed.  When Lehto retired, Tom Daniel, a recent graduate from the University of Michigan, was hired as Curator.  Daniel continued the trend of exchange and growth and contributed important collections – especially from northern Mexico where he did floristic studies on the Acanthaceae.

Les Landrum then took over as Curator in 1988 bringing his expertise of the American Myrtaceae and contributing important material from South America- especially the economically important guava group (Psidium spp.) The Landrum era is notable for several important contributions including the creation of Canotia, a journal for Arizona botany, and National Science Foundation grants to digitize the collection, now available on the SEINet portal.

Landrum retired in 2014 but remains active in the herbarium. Since 2004, Elizabeth Makings has been the Collections Manager of the ASU Vascular Plant Herbarium.

That Arizona State University hosts the largest and most comprehensive collection of lichenized fungi from the American Southwest (southwestern USA, northwest Mexico) is the achievement of Dr. Thomas Hawkes Nash. In 1971 Dr. Nash was hired as professor in the Department of Botany at Arizona State University (later renamed Department of Plant Biology, eventually merged into the School of Life Sciences).

When Dr. Nash arrived at ASU some 100 lichen specimens (half from Sweden) were housed in the Vascular Plant Herbarium. Bill Weber, a lichenologist from the University of Colorado, remembers visiting in the early 70’s. Dr. Nash had just started collecting Arizona lichens, adding several hundred specimens to the ASU collection. What was to be a few hours drop-in visit, turned into a three-day lichen identification session. When Dr. Weber left, many of the Arizona collections now had a name and the lichen herbarium was off to a good start. As the collection grew, it was housed separately from the vascular plants.

As of April 2026, the ASU Lichen Herbarium hosts more than 126,000 specimen records, originating from countries around the globe, with more than 40% from the Greater Sonoran Region, and Arizona in particular. Nearly 50,000 specimens were collected by Dr. Nash. The herbarium holds nearly 450 types (about 40% holotypes), approximately 35 sets of lichenes exsiccati  (some from the early 1800s), and historic specimens of Frére G. Arséne Brouard (collected in the Santa Fe area of New Mexico during the 1930s). This important collection from the 1930’s was re-discovered by lichenologist Bob Egan in an attic of a local school in Santa Fe. Brouard was a French monk living in New Mexico, collecting lichens, sending specimens to eminent lichenologist Bouly de Lesdain in Dunquerque, France. Bouly de Lesdain described numerous new species based on these collections, but his herbarium with its type specimens was destroyed during World War II. Duplicates survived only in the Brouard collections now housed at ASU.

Dr. Nash is a leading authority in the lichen family Parmeliaceae, especially Xanthoparmelia (a cosmopolitan genus, most diverse in the drylands of North and South America, South Africa, and Australia, represented in the herbarium by almost 6,000 specimens), and Hypotrachyna (most diverse in the Neotropics; with ca. 1,000 ASU specimens). Another genus well represented in the collections with almost 9,000 specimens is Lecanora s.l.; Bruce Ryan, one of Dr. Nash’s most prolific doctoral students who described numerous new species. 
Impressively, more than 7,000 different species are today represented in the ASU Lichen Herbarium, which is approximately a third of the world's known lichen biota!  Overall, the ASU collection is thus among the most outstanding regional lichen herbarium in the US. It represents the single largest holding of specimens from the Greater Sonoran Desert Region, a world-class collection in its own right.

The main reason why the ASU Lichen Herbarium is so impressive is the Sonoran Lichen Project. Directed by Dr. Nash with the help of his students and 92 collaborators from 23 countries, this species inventory took almost 18 years to complete. It remains one of the most outstanding achievements in Dr. Nash’s career. The project culminated in the publication of three volumes of the Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region, a comprehensive treatment of lichen diversity in a region covering ca. 500,000 km2 (including southern California, all of Arizona, Baja California, Baja California Sur, and Sonora, as well as the northern half of Sinaloa and western Chihuahua).

Volume I (edited by Nash, Ryan, Gries & Bungartz) was published in 2002, it includes an extensive introduction with a register of lichen terminology, keys to the genera, and provides detailed descriptions for 123 genera with 573 species.Thirty-six authors contributed to this first volume.
Volume II  (edited by Nash, Ryan, Diederich, Gries & Bungartz) was published in 2004, it continues the key to the genera with an additional 109 genera and 772 species treated. It also includes the treatment of Lichenicolous Fungi with a key to the genera and taxonomic treatment of this group of fungi. Volume II also has a color insert with 94 species illustrated (plus 2 microscope images of apothecial sections characteristic for the genus Lecanora). Sixty five authors contributed to volume II.

Volume III  (edited by Nash,Gries & Bungartz) was published in 2007, it completes the treatment of genera and species from the region, with detailed descriptions of 39 genera and 491 species. The book adds several species from genera treated in the previous volumes, additional genera and species of lichenicolous fungi, a key to sterile crustose species, and a revised cyanolichen key. Volume III also includes an index of genera and species treated in all three volumes, an index of newly described taxa and an index to all major identification keys. A color insert illustrates 224 species not illustrated in the previous volume. Forty seven authors contributed to volume III.

Dr. Nash was employed as a full professor at the School of Life Sciences until his retirement in 2010, when he and his family moved to Wisconsin. His wife, Dr. Corinna Gries, accepted a new position for the North Temperate Lakes Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program at the University of Wisconsin. 

Until the new dedicated collections building was inaugurated in 2014, ASU placed the lichen collection into storage. Legacy loans from the Sonoran Project could not be returned and specimens were generally unavailable for research during these four years.

When ASU’s new collection facilities opened, newly hired collections manager Dr. Walter Fertig was charged with making the important collections accessible again. Three years on, as a botanist primarily interested in plants, Walter accepted a position managing the herbarium of Washington State University. And in the summer of 2017, Dr. Frank Bungartz, lichenologist and former graduate student of Dr. Nash, was hired as Collections Manager for the Lichen Herbarium. In 2023 Frauke Ziemmeck started her position as curatorial assistant, thanks to a generous donation by Dr. Shirley Tucker (professor emeritus, Louisiana State University and Santa Barbara Botanic Garden).

The original Fossil Plant Collection includes fossil plant specimens amassed by Dr. James E. Canright who came to ASU in 1964. Canright assembled a core teaching collection and contributed materials from internationally significant sites such as the Rhynie Chert, Cayton Bay, the Sydney Basin of Australia and coal ball floras of the Midcontinent United States. With his research interests in basal angiosperms and coal geology Canright assembled extant slide collections of plant anatomy, pollen and wood, highlighting such families as Magnoliaceae, Annonaceae, and Hernandiaceae, among others. Canright’s graduate students added many Arizona coal sites and studies of additional angiosperm families (e.g. Burseraceae, Crossosomataceae), 

Michael A. Cichan succeeded Canright in 1986 and during his short time at ASU he contributed Pennsylvanian compression fossils, coal balls and a small collection of 3-dimensionally preserved flowers.

Kathleen B. Pigg was hired in1988 and has contributed collections from Pennsylvanian coal-ball floras, Permian Glossopteris floras of Australia and South Africa, and the Paleocene (Almont/Beicegel Creek, North Dakota), Eocene (Republic, Washington) and Miocene (Yakima Canyon, Washington) floras of western North America. She also has contributed to the live plant collections including such families as Trochodendraceae, Altingiaceae, and Lythraceae in association with fossil studies.

In 2024 we acquired a large collection from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill of the late plant anatomist William C. Dickison that includes over 500 microscope boxes (ca 500,000 slides) especially rich in Dllieniaceae, Ericales (Actinidiaceae, Clethraceae, Styracaceae), and unusual hard-to-obtain families (e.g. Biebersteiniaceae, Bonnetiaceae, Cunoniaceae).  Additional gifts to the collection came from Sherwin Carlquist, Melanie L. DeVore, Ted Delevoryas, Donald  Eggert, Patricia Gensel, Stefanie M. Ickert-Bond, Robert Jones, Gilbert Leisman, H. Maheshwari, Steven R. Manchester, Donald J. Pinkava, Gar W. Rothwell, William C. Rember, Ruth Stockey, Bruce H. Tiffney, Wes Wehr, Jack Wolfe, Michael Zavada and the families of Robert Lundin and Loren Petry.

Matthew F. Jones came to ASU on a Presidential Postdoctoral program and became an Assistant Professor in ASU’s School of Life Sciences in 2025 a position that he currently holds. His research is in bats and other small mammals, and he and his lab coordinated the invertebrate, vertebrate and trace fossil collections, which were incorporated into the Paleobiology Collections in April 2026. They include approximately 300 specimens from the Israel Linebach Collection that was obtained in 2015. Strengths of this collection include an excellent assemblage of trilobites, crinoids, brachiopods, fish, and mammals. In 2026, portions of the Robert Dietz collection were transferred from ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration. These specimens include display quality permineralized wood, a turtle shell and mammals.
 

The Hasbrouck Insect Collections, part of the NHC Insect Collections, began to flourish in the early 1960s under the curatorship of Dr. Frank F. Hasbrouck, a specialist in the burrowing webworm moth family Acrolophidae (Lepidoptera), who was recruited to Arizona State University in 1962. At that time, the collection operated under the code ASUT for "Tempe" and consisted of approximately 50,000 specimens that had been accumulated gradually since the 1910s, primarily in support of teaching.

Over nearly 25 years of energetic and meticulous leadership, Dr. Hasbrouck expanded the collection to approximately 650,000 specimens. Working alongside colleagues such as Mont A. Cazier, Gordon Bender, Gordon Castle, and Herbert Stahnke - and with the contributions of students including Martin Kolner, William Warner, and Ronald Wielgus - the collection grew to nearly 700,000 specimens within three decades. The emphasis during this period was on documenting the insect fauna of the southwestern United States and Sonoran region. The current collection team proudly serves as stewards of this remarkable legacy.

The collection experienced limited activity between 1990 and 2010. In 2011, Dr. Nico Franz was appointed as curator and served in that role until July 2024. In 2012, Dr. Sangmi Lee was hired as the collection manager. The official collection code was changed to ASUHIC. With new personnel and resources, the collection has been fully reactivated with a diverse program in research, teaching, and outreach to the public.

In 2018, the O'Brien Insect Collections, comprising approximately over 1.2 million weevil and planthopper specimens with a global range and a strong emphasis on New World, particularly Neotropical regions, were transferred to and reactivated within the ASU Insect Collections. The official collection codes are ASUCOB for the Charles O’Brien weevil collection and ASULOB for the Lois O’Brien fulgoroid collection. This integration substantially expanded the global taxonomic scope and research capacity of the NHC holdings.

Our collection is composed of several smaller shell collections donated by various individuals, with two major holdings comprising the majority of the material. The largest is an estimated 100,000 shells donated by Edwin C. Roworth around 1970. This collection was moved multiple times after its transfer to Dr. Pewe, then head of the Geology Department (now School of Earth and Space Exploration). As a result, some specimens and labels became separated and ongoing work continues to reconcile these and update the taxonomy. The second largest collection is an estimated 40,000 shells collected by Chester W. Melville and received in 1966, two years after his death. This collection also had labels separated from the shells during shipment from Mr. Melville’s home in Massachusetts. However, at that time Phoenix had a shell club and the members were able to reconcile most of the shells. Additional holdings are much smaller and include fossil shells collected in Florida, shells from Okinawa, and a small collection donated by James F. Duffy in 2025.

As ASU grew, additional faculty were hired who built the other collections, including the Vertebrate Collection. Though there are specimens that were collected dating back to 1877, most of the active collecting occurred between the 1950s-1980s. Collecting has largely followed the research interests of faculty curators and affiliates. For instance, the Ichthyology Collection was built around the research activities of the late Wendell Minckley, and continued to grow through the collecting activities of Paul Marsh, Thomas Dowling, and Anthony Gill. The Ichthyology Collection continues to grow at a slower rate today as a repository for non-game fish collected in fish surveys by Arizona Department of Game and Fish. 

Other means of specimen acquisition include collecting field trips and donations of taxidermy and salvage specimens. Field trips were, and still are, a teaching tool that allow students to participate actively in sampling and contribute to the collections. Our collection includes repositories of field notes and corresponding specimens from students that contributed to the mammal collections going back over 50 years. Our mammal and ornithology collections have also grown through the donation of mounted taxidermy specimens. One notable donation was the Charles Vorm collection, a collection of mounted heads from the late Vorm’s hunting trips to Africa and India from 1948-1974. This collection includes not only well-preserved taxidermy of many species, but also valuable associated data on the location and year that they were collected. Our collection continues to grow through the addition of salvaged materials, including specimens that were found deceased from vehicle and window strikes by collection affiliates.

In August 2018, ASU was selected by the US National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) leadership to become the NEON Biorepository, potentially for the full 30-year duration of the project as presently designed. The NEON Biorepository collections are incredibly diverse and expand the scope of the ASU Biocollections to include DNA extractions, frozen arthropods, frozen plant tissue, frozen microbes, environmental samples, and vertebrate blood and tissue samples, in addition to invertebrate, vertebrate, and plant vouchered specimens. Specimens included in the NEON Biorepository are collected at over 80 field sites across the continental United States, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico by Battelle Memorial Institute, which manages the Observatory for the NSF. On August 1, 2025, Dr. Hojun Song became the PI for the NEON Biorepository.