February 11, 1903: 115 years ago

In honor of the cool, new Tropical Forest Cuba that opened yesterday at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, here’s a specimen collected in Cuba 115 years ago today.  This pine specimen of Pinus elliottii, known as slash pine or Cuban pine, was collected by George Russell Shaw in the Isles of Pines, Cuba (now known as Isla de la Juventud).  Shaw was an influential botanist working at the Arnold Arboretum (Harvard) who specialized in pines.   
 
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History has many specimens from Cuba.  Curator of Botany Otto Jennings and others went on expeditions to Cuba in the early 1900s, and many specimens are now preserved at the Carnegie Museum and elsewhere.  The Carnegie Museum herbarium includes 4,068 specimens from Cuba, of which 54 are type specimens (meaning they are associated with the description of a species new to science). 
 
Learn more about the plants and culture of Cuba at Tropical Forest Cuba at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens!

Above: Publication resulting from expeditions to the Isles of Pines, written by one the first curators of botany Otto Jennings, who researched the plants of Cuba. 631 specimens from Cuba collected by Jennings reside in the Carnegie Museum herbarium today.