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NOTICE
Herbarium Specimen Recipients As Of 1980 From Otto Andor Isa Degener
The extermination of the native Hawaiian flora has been progressing with geometrical speed due to bulldozing, woodchipping and lumbering operations in addition to the usual practices and dangers too trite to mention here. So many endemic taxa have been exterminated that many good publications by more modern monographers would be better if these writers spent less time trying to find extinct taxa in the field and, instead, spent more finding them as herbarium specimens scattered in institutions of learning throughout the World. Pertinent information concerning such treasures can be readily obtained by mailing enquiring postals to curators of a hundred or so institutions listed in the compilation of Holmgren & Keuken as the "Index Herbariorum", Part 1, Ed. 6:1-397. 1974.
The best collection of Hawaiian plants thus far has been amassed by one or both Degeners since 1922. The best set has been deposited at the New York Botanical Garden, where both are staff members, as an outright gift. Whenever no special note has been added to the contrary to a herbarium label or in print, the specimen in New York, if new, is the TYPE. Good duplicate sets have been sent to the B.P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu; to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Mass.; and to the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, Mo. Other smaller sets have been sent on permanent loan; as gifts; or in exchange for plants, literature of expert information to more than seventy-five institutions. Most of these, following the "Index Herbariorum", are listed below. These are the main institutions worth contacting for Hawaiian taxa. Furthermore, we wish to emphasize that monographers citing specimens without giving year of collection fail to impart to the reader roughly how long a taxon has been able to survive the recent holocaust.
Having witnessed the bombing of the Berlin Botanical Museum by British fliers aided half-heartedly by our own, with the resultant destruction of Hillebrand's invaluable collection of Hawaiian plants; and the bombing of Oahu during World War II, we no longer "keep all our eggs in one basket". We scatter them as the list indicates. Moreover, we are catholic in our choices, realizing that our plant treasures may be safer in perhaps unpopular foreign institutions than in our own. Do remember that after the ghastly slaughter of World War II that reduced the human biomass, we Americans soon became the sincerest of friends with Germany and Japan (See Degener, O. Flora Haw. Books 1-4: A Botanist Leaves Hawaii. 5/10/45.). History is apt to repeat itself.
Aarhus AAU, Adelaide AD, Ames ISC, Amherst MAAS, Ann Arbor MICH, Auckland AK & AKU, Austin TEX, Basel BAS, Berkeley UC, Berlin B, Bloomington IMD, Bochum, Boulder (Cyrtandra-Denham) COLO, Brno BRNM, Brussels BR, Budapest BPU, Calcutta CAL, Canberra CANB, Carbondale SIU, Chiba, Christchurch CHR, College Station TAES, Coimbra COI, Copenhagen C, Dallas SMU, Dublin DBN, Edinburgh E, Florence FL, Fukuoka FU, Gainesville, FLAS, Geneva G, Gifu, Göteborg GB, Göttingen GOET, Graz GZU, Halle HAL, Hamburg HSG, Helsinki H, Hiroshima HIRO, Honolulu BISH, Ithaca BH, Jamaica Plain AAH, Jena JE, Kagoshima KAG, Kanazawa KANA, Karlsruhe KR, Kew K, Kiew KW, Krakow KRA, Kyoto KYO, Kyushu, (E) Lansing MSC, Lausanne LAU, Wai Yu Lee (Manchester), Leiden L, Leningrad LE,"London EM, Lucknow LWG, Lund LD, Madison WIS, Manchester MANCH, Melbourne MEL, Mie, Milwaukee MIL, Montpellier MFU, Montreal MT, Moscow MW, Munich M, Nagoya (Aichiigakuin University), Naga, Nara, New York NY, Oshkosh OSH, Oslo O, Ottawa CAN, Oulu OULU, Paris P, Peking PE, Praha PR, Pyatigorsk (Galushko), Rio de Janeiro HB, Ryukyu, Sapporo SAP, Seattle WTU, Smithsonian (D.C.) US, Stanford DS, St. Louis MO, Stockholm S, Stockton CPH, Sydney NSW, Tampa USF, Tokyo TI, Tübingen RUB, Turku TUR, Ulm, Uppsala UPS, Urbana ILL, Utrecht U, Washington (Ornamentals) NA, Wellington WELT, Wien W, Zürich Z.
At what other centers of learning some of the sets collected in the '20s went we do not know as they had been sold on consignment to the Leipzig dealer Oswald Weigel @ $10.00 per Century less 1/3 trade discount.
