Herbarium flowering time data

NYBG Steere Herbarium Assistant Director Nicole Tarnowsky shows us that the Herbarium’s trout lilies are a record of how plants are responding to climate change! Maintaining collections through time and space is so crucial for understanding largescale patterns like this. And to see uptodate data on what’s flowering at NYBG right now, check out their bloom trackers

This video was supported with a Vlogbrothers Sponsorship.

#botany #herbarium #flowers #science #climatechange

Papers cited in the video:

Ahlstrand et al 2013. Grass flowering times determined using herbarium specimens for modeling grass pollen under a warming climate.

Calinger et al 2013. Herbarium specimens reveal the footprint of climate change on flowering trends across north-central North America.

Davis et al 2015. Herbarium records are reliable sources of phenological change driven by climate and provide novel insights into species' phenological cueing mechanisms.

Lima et al 2021. Phenological responses to climate change based on a hundred years of herbarium collections of tropical Melastomataceae.

Panchen et al 2025. Digitised herbarium specimen data reveal a climate change-related trend to an earlier, shorter Canadian Arctic flowering season, and phylogenetic signal in Arctic flowering times.

Ramirez-Parada et al 2022. Herbarium specimens provide reliable estimates of phenological responses to climate at unparalleled taxonomic and spatiotemporal scales.

Rawa et al 2015. Herbarium records identify sensitivity of flowering phenology of eucalypts to climate: Implications for species response to climate change.

Solakis et al 2025. Retrospective phenology in western Mediterranean plants: revealing climate change patterns through herbarium specimens.

Willems et al 2022. Forest wildflowers bloom earlier as Europe warms: lessons from herbaria and spatial modelling.

Williams et al 2021. Herbarium records demonstrate changes in flowering phenology associated with climate change over the past century within the Cape Floristic Region, South Africa.