By Cynthia Hubert

March 13, 2025

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.

Then, in January 2024, plant ecologist Marina LaForgia joined the Department of Biological Sciences as an assistant professor after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at UC Davis.

LaForgia looked at the herbarium, contaminated by chemical fumes, covered in dust, and cluttered with books as well as piles of papers and faulty equipment, 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.

“The hands-on aspect is my absolute favorite. If I can touch the things that I’m studying, it’s great. Nothing like it.” -- Mel Weber, student assistant

By fully identifying them and converting them to a digital format, they are helping to fill gaps in understanding of plant distribution over the last century and enabling researchers worldwide to explore past and future plant communities.

“These specimens are super valuable,” said LaForgia. “A lot of people might look at them and just think they are beautiful, but they offer so much knowledge. We are creating a really useful scientific record of what grew here and when.”

Most of the Sac State specimens, which LaForgia discovered inside closed cabinets, were collected in California by retired Sac State professor Michael Baad. But others are from places as far away as Japan, the Philippines and Greenland.

Among other things, the collections hold potential for understanding evolutionary and ecological responses to climate change, land development, plant diseases and pest invasion.

“It’s a snapshot into past plant communities,” LaForgia said.

But Sac State’s herbarium, which is attached to the classroom where LaForgia teaches, needed a major overhaul before she could even begin exploring its contents.

“It was a bit overwhelming,” she said.

With the help of Sac State Environmental Health and Safety crews, she and student volunteers decontaminated the specimens stored in cabinets, did some deep cleaning and organized thousands of books and papers. Additionally, campus Facilities staffers patched walls, repainted the room and added a door plate that now proudly reads “Herbarium.”

The formerly neglected space now offers a hands-on learning experience for students, such as Cami Patiño and Mel Weber, who are evaluating the specimens and adding them to a public database, CCH2, operated by the Consortium of California Herbaria.

Specimens are mounted on paper and kept in folders that were left unopened for over 20 years. Some even contain detailed handwritten notes from collectors.

Weber and Patiño described opening each folder as similar to unwrapping a Christmas present.

“You never know what you’re going to find,” said Weber.

After evaluating each specimen, the students attach a barcode to it and upload it to the CHH2 database.

“The hands-on aspect is my absolute favorite,” said Weber, who works as a student assistant on the project. “If I can touch the things that I’m studying, it’s great. Nothing like it.”

Thus far, students have imaged more than 4,000 specimens, with many cabinets yet to be explored.

Working with the specimens in the Plant Taxonomy lab is one of Patiño’s favorite activities at Sac State, she said.

“I love the lab here,” Patiño said. “Some labs can be tedious, but this one is super fun.”

The students hope to parlay their studies into graduate programs or jobs in plant ecology.

Restoring the herbarium has been satisfying work and will pay dividends for years to come, LaForgia said, adding that student involvement in the project has been especially rewarding.

The once-dormant herbarium is now contributing to new discoveries about the history and diversity of plant life in California and beyond, and offers an unprecedented learning opportunity for Sac State students, LaForgia said.

After finishing her UC Davis fellowship, LaForgia explored positions at various universities. The chance to work one-on-one with students at Sac State was enticing, as was the presence of the herbarium, despite its dilapidated state.

“I never thought I would be running an herbarium, but the experience has been really great,” said LaForgia. “I absolutely love our students. They are driven, and I really enjoy working with them. And once we have everything digitized, we will have all kinds of interesting research questions to explore.”