When I was a kid, one of my hobbies was collecting specimens of local wildflowers. Any time I went out exploring I’d tuck an old grocery bag into my pocket so that I could gather any new plants that I discovered. With my dad’s help, these new specimens would be carefully identified using a botanical key before I pressed them to dry and mounted them as part of my collection. My little childhood plant collection couldn’t compare to the contents of a real herbarium, but the desire to catalogue and understand the natural world creates a common thread between them. Herbariums, which are kind of a cross between a library and a museum, can be found at many universities and other institutions such as botanical gardens and museums. In the herbarium, each plant specimen is pressed and dried before being mounted onto a large sheet of acid-free paper. A label is attached that documents not only the name of the species, but the name and date of the collector, the specific location it was collected, along with information about the plant’s habitat and any associated species. Once complete, each sheet is placed into a folder or box containing similar species. Even a small herbarium will contain thousands of specimens. The first herbariums date back hundreds of years to the Italian Renaissance when they were established in the mid 16th century as teaching resources for Italian universities. While those original specimens have been lost, some collected shortly after the herbariums were established still survive. Under proper conditions, plant specimens can last for hundreds of years. At world-renowned Kew Gardens, the earliest specimen dates to 1696, more than 150 years before the Kew Herbarium was established. This mismatch in dates is not unusual as herbariums frequently acquire private collections. As well, herbariums share specimens between different institutions in response to research requests so a plant that was collected by one herbarium may make its way around the world to