Steere Herbarium

About this museum

Housed within the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, the William and Lynda Steere Herbarium is not a museum in any conventional sense - there are no dramatic dioramas, no interactive screens, no crowd - pleasing spectacles. What it offers instead is something rarer and more profound: access to one of the largest and most scientifically significant plant collections on Earth, a repository that serves researchers from around the world who are working to document, understand, and protect global plant diversity before it disappears.The herbarium holds approximately seven million dried plant specimens, each carefully mounted, labeled, and preserved - a physical library of botanical history that stretches back centuries and spans every continent. Some specimens were collected by legendary botanists on expedition through unexplored territory; others document plant populations that have since gone extinct in the wild, making the herbarium collection the only remaining physical evidence of their existence. For plant scientists, ecologists, and conservationists, this is irreplaceable material.Located at 2670 Southern Boulevard within the NYBG campus, the Steere Herbarium offers limited public access during weekday hours - Monday through Friday from 9AM to 5PM - primarily serving the scholarly community conducting research in its collections. Visitors with a serious interest in botany, taxonomy, or conservation biology will find the opportunity to engage with the staff and collections genuinely illuminating. The herbarium functions as part of the broader scientific program at sweetgum.nybg.org.Admission is free for visits to the herbarium itself, though the New York Botanical Garden's broader grounds and conservatories carry separate admission fees. For those drawn to the intersection of science, history, and conservation, the Steere Herbarium is one of the Bronx's most quietly extraordinary institutions - a living archive of the plant world in all its endangered abundance.