From August 24 through November 18, explore the large variety of plant species that grow at QBG through this preserved collection of specimens.

About the exhibit:
On the 39 acres of Queens Botanical Garden live over 800 woody plants and about a hundred times more herbaceous plants. Since 2014, our horticulture staff has taken on the task of documenting them not just as words on a page or characters in a spreadsheet, but as an organized collection of pressed and preserved plant specimen – a herbarium.
Our herbarium is young (as is our Garden) whereas some of the herbaria (and gardens) around the world are several centuries old. The records stored in these herbaria can be mined for a wealth of information about the plants and the world they existed in. Comparing specimen collected over time highlights structural changes that reveal evolution’s hand, while the notes included with the plants tell stories of changing borders and shifting climates.
We hope that by sharing a small sample of our collection with our visitors we can also share the awe and the stories these plants inspire in us.