Curator of the Herbarium, MBG
Research Interests
• Collections Management
• Botanical History
• Flora of Bolivia
• Database Development
Web Page: Digitizing Engelmann's Legacy
Project: Documenting the Plants Collected by Early Explorers of Western North America in the MBG Herbarium. James Solomon is Curator of the Herbarium and oversees a staff of 30 full-time project managers, herbarium assistants, plant mounters, specimen filers, specimen digitizers, in addition to working on Cactaceae and Vitaceae. The herbarium currently contains over 6.2 million sheets – one of the largest such collections in the world, and contains significant holdings of North American material, including type specimens from the early period of western North American plant exploration. Working from St. Louis at MBG, George Engelmann organized some of the earliest botanical explorations into the American West and Northern Mexico. Within the herbarium there are a significant number of specimens collected during these and additional expeditions west of the Mississippi River. A student can choose historically important collectors and their collections as the focus of their project. They will study archival materials and published literature on the person’s collecting activities, locate the collector's specimens in the herbarium collection using Tropicos and personal searches, verify identification, amplify locality data from archival and literature sources, work with MBG staff to digitally image the specimens, and help produce a summary and online electronic catalog. The student will use historical records and literature, handle and manage herbarium specimens, receive exposure to vascular plant taxonomy and nomenclature, data entry and digital imaging procedures. This is a good opportunity for someone who has some experience with herbarium work and would like to obtain in-depth training.
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