The Dried Botanicals Collection is unique because it is an
actively curated collection held in conjunction with a
herbarium and routinely used for identifying materials for
U.S. companies and government agencies.
The Dried Botanicals Collection, established in 2000,
includes 1,405 specimens of dried plants of
flavor/fragrance/medicine from the early to late 20th
century and into the 21st century. Two other principal
collections exists in the U.S.:
The Field Museum of Chicago with 12,000 specimens in the
Timothy C. Plowman Economic Botany Collection.
The William L. Brown Center for Plant Genetic Resources at
the Missouri Botanical garden in St. Louis with over 10,000
samples in their “food library”: http://www.wlbcenter.org/
Each sample in the Dried Botanicals Collection is:
authenticated by the collector or commercial company, with
the state or country in which the samples were collected
identified to at least genus, but most often to species.
Suggested additional readings include:
Bisset, N. G., and M. Wichtl, eds. 2001. Herbal drugs and
phytopharmaceuticals. Second ed. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
Bock, J. H. 1988. Identifying plant food cells in gastric
contents for use in forensic investigations: A laboratory
manual. U. S. Dept. Justice, Natl. Inst. Justice.
Chaukul, W., et al. 1997. Medicinal plants in Thailand.
Mahidol Univ., Bangkok, Thailand. 2 vols.
Chin, W. Y. and H. Keng. 1992. An illustrated dictionary of
Chinese medicinal herbs. CRCS Publ.;, Sebastopol, CA.
Farnsworth, N. R., and N. Bunyapraphatsara. 1992. Thai
medicinal plants recommended for primary health care
system. Prachachon Co., Bangkok, Thaliand.
Greenish, H. G. 1923. The microscopical examination of
foods and drugs. P. Blakiston’s Son & Co.,
Philadelphia.
Jackson, B. P., and D. W. Snowdon. 1990. Atlas of
microscopy of medicinal plants, culinary herbs and spices.
CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL.
Mansfield, W. 1937. Materia medica, toxicology and
pharmacognosy. C. V. Mosby Co., St. Louis.
Moll, J. W., and H. H. Janssonius. 1923. Botanical
pen-portraits. Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague.
National Institute for the Control of Pharmaceutical and
Biological Products. 1987. Colour atlas of Chinese
traditional drugs. Sci. Press, Beijing.
Stahl, E., ed. 1973. Drug analysis by chromatography and
microscopy. Ann Arbor Sci. Publ., Ann Arbor, MI.
Svoboda, K. P., and T. G. Svoboda. 2000. Secretory
structures of aromatic and medicinal plants. Microscopix
Publ., Powys, UK.
Werle, L., and J. Cox. 1998. Ingredients. Könemann,
Cologne.
Wiley Publ. Co. 1996. The visual food encyclopedia. Wiley
Publ. Co., New York.
Yen, K.-Y. 1992. The illustrated Chinese material medica,
crude and prepared. Transl. N. Wiseman. SMC Publ., Taipei.
The Dried Botanicals Collection is intended for display,
scientific research, teaching, education and other
Herbarium programs.
Donations to the Dried Botanicals Collection have included
the following, with thanks. We welcome your future
participation!
Ms. Anne Abbott
Ms. Dorothy Bonitz
Dr. Keith Clancy
Mr. Stephen Facciola
Mr. Michael McGuffin
Ms. Ruth Smith
Mr. Rexford Talbert
Dr. Thomas Zanoni