For nearly two decades, Sacramento State’s campus herbarium lay dormant, its plant specimens hidden and nearly forgotten inside a shuttered lab in Sequoia Hall.
That changed when plant ecologist Marina LaForgia joined the Department of Biological Sciences as an assistant professor. She looked at the herbarium and saw potential for bringing it back to life.
Today, the herbarium serves as an important research and learning tool for LaForgia and her students. As part of a Plant Taxonomy class, they are combing through 20,000 pressed plant specimens, some dating to the late 1800s, in an effort to digitize them.
