University of Hawaii, Joseph F. Rock Herbarium (HAW-L)

Founded in 1908, the Joseph F. Rock Herbarium (HAW) serves the official university repository for plant specimens associated with student, staff, and faculty teaching and research. The herbaria was created by Dr. Joseph F. Rock's original collections and is the oldest herbaria in Hawaii. It is the result of decades of plant exploration by some of the leading researchers in the Pacific basin and today its use continues to expand. The herbarium is part of the University Museum Consortium, and comprises approximately 60,000 dried preserved plant specimens including algae, bryophytes, pteridophytes, angiosperms, fungi, and ancillary collections of 35 mm slides, wood, seed, and DNA. For more than 100 years, the herbarium has been a focal point for teaching, training, and education on the flora of Hawai'i and the Pacific with particular emphasis on vascular plants. Since 2009, the herbarium has also managed the departments living collection in the St. John Courtyard Botanical Garden. There are currently more than 6500 lichens databased and imaged with an additional 5000 specimens remaining undetermined.