University of Nebraska State Museum, C.E. Bessey Herbarium (NEB)

The Bessey Herbarium was founded in 1874, making it among the oldest in the Great Plains states of Colorado, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, and Nebraska. The collection has more than 310,000 specimens, placing it among the largest in the Great Plains. The largest parts of the collection are, in descending order, from Nebraska, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, other parts of North America, and Europe. It contains important collections by such scientifically notable Nebraskans as Charles Bessey, Ernst Bessey, Frederic Clements, Walter Kiener, Per Rydberg, Raymond Pool, Jared G. Smith; by other Nebraskans who later became prominent in other fields, such as Roscoe Pound (Law), Louise Pound (Literature), Willa Cather (Literature), Melvin Gilmore (Ethnobotany), Lawrence Bruner (Entomology) and Henry Baldwin Ward (Parasitology); and by many prominent scientists from outside the state.

Interim Contact: Susan Weller, susan.weller@unl.edu
Collection Type: Preserved Specimens
Management: Live Data managed directly within data portal
Global Unique Identifier: 973926b1-3cb7-47f1-a7f9-59bdb0946c3f
Digital Metadata: EML File
Address:
University of Nebraska State Museum
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
W531 Nebraska Hall
Lincoln, Nebraska   68588-0514
United States
Collection Statistics
  • 145,565 specimen records
  • 17,037 (12%) georeferenced
  • 143,837 (99%) identified to species
  • 236 families
  • 1,727 genera
  • 7,438 species
  • 7,882 total taxa (including subsp. and var.)
Extra Statistics
Geographic Distribution
Click on the specimen record counts within the parenthesis to return the records for that term