This morning I drove to Fort Worth to join a tour of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, or BRIT.

A few years ago they published a massive tome called Shinner’s and Mahler’s Flora of North Central Texas. Despite the high price I bought a copy and I’ve been glad I did. Ever since, I have wanted to learn more about the place.

BRIT is one of the largest herbariums in the country. A herbarium, as I learned today, is a kind of special museum or repository for plant specimens, which are pressed and dried, then mounted on sheets of 11×16 paper. BRIT houses over a million such mounted specimens. They are used by botanists for plant identification and classification, who either go there to view them or request that the specimens be loaned to a closer herbarium.

New species are still being discovered fairly frequently. When that happens the specimens become especially important. The first specimen establishes the definition for the species, and later specimens are compared against it to see if they are different or the same. Each new species must also have it’s description published in Latin.

Anyone can submit a specimen, although most come from botanists or research assistants. BRIT has so many specimens waiting to be mounted and catalogued that they estimate it will take them 76 years to catch up at their present rate. And I was worried that I was getting a little behind at the office! Most of these specimens are not new species however, but familiar species found in a new location.

They also have over 75,000 books on plants, including many rare and antique volumes. We saw a copy of the 1836 British journal in which the Texas bluebonnet was first identified and named. Assistant director Barney Lipscomb, who showed us around the library, is something of a showman and has an amazing ability to make his profession seem fascinating.

It was an entertaining and educational visit.