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About this collection

Extent

4875 digital objects.

Cite This Work

Smith, Jennifer E.; Khen, Adi (2025). Ellen Browning Scripps Herbarium Collection. UC San Diego Library Digital Collections. https://doi.org/10.6075/J0TD9XRG

Description

Herbarium collections are important for measuring biodiversity, understanding taxonomy, and documenting change across space and time. Historically, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) had an herbarium collection of pressed seaweeds (dried seaweeds preserved on paper) managed by the late Dr. Ralph Lewin. In the 1990s, all specimens were transferred to the San Diego Natural History Museum, UC San Diego Geisel Library Special Collections, or the University Herbarium at UC Berkeley. Since then, the Smith Lab at SIO (https://seaweedecologylab.ucsd.edu/) has accumulated thousands of seaweed pressings collected over the past decade, largely by our research team or students in our Phycology (Marine Plant Biology) undergraduate and graduate lab course. As of 2023, we have been working to curate, catalog, and digitize these specimens in an effort to re-establish an official herbarium collection at SIO for teaching, research, and outreach.

This collection consists of 4,800+ seaweed specimens; approximately 45.3% of specimens are from the phylum Rhodophyta (red algae), with 39.2% from Ochrophyta (brown algae) and 15.5% from Chlorophyta (green algae), representing over 150 genera and nearly 300 species. Most specimens are from Southern California, particularly San Diego County. Each specimen has been morphologically identified to the species or genus level and is labeled with information such as the collection date and location, collector's name, and catalog number. Specimens are currently held in the Marine Conservation and Technology Facility at SIO, organized taxonomically in herbarium cabinets. All specimens were digitized through high-resolution scans with a ruler and color calibration card, and are also available on the Algae Herbarium Portal (https://macroalgae.org/portal/).

Scope And Content

This herbarium collection will grow over time as additional specimens are collected and digitized. A spreadsheet containing a list of the specimens in the collection, as well as a Krona chart visualization showing the relative abundance and classification of the specimens, are available for download at https://doi.org/10.6075/J0Z60PF9.

Date Collected

• 1904 to 2025-07

Date Issued

• 2025

Principal Investigator

• Smith, Jennifer E.

Curator

• Khen, Adi

Funding

Funding was provided by the Beyster Family, Ellen Browning Scripps Foundation, and California Institute for Biodiversity.

Geographics

• San Diego (California)
• Southern California

Scientific Names

• Acrosiphoniales
• Ahnfeltiales
• Bangiales
• Bonnemaisoniales
• Bryopsidales
• Ceramiales
• Chlorophyta
• Cladophorales
• Corallinales
• Desmarestiales
• Dictyotales
• Ectocarpales
• Erythropeltidales
• Fucales
• Gelidiales
• Gigartinales
• Gracilariales
• Halymeniales
• Hapalidiales
• Laminariales
• Nemaliales
• Nemastomatales
• Ochrophyta
• Palmariales
• Peyssonneliales
• Plocamiales
• Ralfsiales
• Rhodophyta
• Rhodymeniales
• Sphacelariales
• Sporochnales
• Tilopteridales
• Ulvales

Topics

• Domain: Earth sciences
• Herbarium
• Macroalgae
• Macroalgal herbarium collection
• Marine algae
• Phycology
• Seaweed
• Seaweed pressing
• Subdomain: Oceanography

Formats

View formats within this collection

• image
• text

Language

• No linguistic content; Not applicable

Identifier

Identifier: Adi Khen: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3751-6177

Identifier: Jennifer Smith: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4516-6931

Related Resources

Interactive viewer

• Algae Herbarium Portal: https://macroalgae.org/portal/

Other resource

• Smith Seaweed Ecology Lab: https://seaweedecologylab.ucsd.edu/
• Supplemental materials for the Ellen Browning Scripps Herbarium Collection: https://doi.org/10.6075/J0Z60PF9

Collection image

• Image credit: Adi Khen, The Smith Lab, Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "Seaweed Digital Art."