June 6, 1939: 87 years ago today

Pittsburgh Parks had an herbarium?!

This specimen of European barberry was collected on June 6, 1939 by William C. Grimm and B. McCluske in Schenley Park, Pittsburgh, PA, not far too from the museum.  The species Berberis vulgaris is relatively uncommon in western Pennsylvania. It was perhaps one of the earliest non-native species restricted for sale and planting, banned by law in New England as early as the 1700s due to its threat to crops as an alternative host for wheat stem rust.  It looks similar to Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii), which is quite commonly found in landscaping and growing wild in our forests and (and only banned for sale in PA in 2021).  But, one easy way to distinguish is the teeth on the leaves that are absent in Japanese barberry.

There is a lot to say about this specimen, but what caught my eye was the label. It appears to be a mass produced label for collections for the Pittsburgh city parks. The label includes a line for a typewritten addition of which park from which the specimen comes. At the bottom of the label say "Herbarium, Bureau of Parks, Pittsburgh, PA" with the "Ex" handwritten later, likely when it became part of the Carnegie Museum herbarium.

The core label data is searchable in online databases (species, locality, collector, date, etc.) but the labels sometimes have more to say.  A study of all the different label types at the Carnegie Museum herbarium would be fascinating.  And I'm sure would come up with some surprises.

Like this one...apparently Pittsburgh Parks had an herbarium! Who knew?

I'll have to keep an eye out for other Pittsburgh Park specimen labels.

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