Deaver Herbarium

Learn about the Deaver Herbarium

Our collection

The Deaver Herbarium is a nationally recognized research collection founded in 1930. The herbarium houses ~130,000 specimens from the 1880’s to present. The collections serve as a repository for NAU faculty, staff, and student research vouchers. Although collections are worldwide in scope with 55 countries represented, particularly valuable collections include those from regional tribal and federal lands including 10 national parks estimated to be 50% of the collections.  

NSF funding supported the data capture, imaging, and georeferencing of all processed specimens. This material is available through loan and exchange programs to other institutions and worldwide via the Southwestern Environmental Information Network web portal.  

More than three-quarters of the herbarium’s specimens were collected in Arizona, with most coming from the northern half of the state. In addition to northern Arizona, the collection emphasizes plants from the southern Colorado Plateau and adjacent deserts.

Each specimen documents the existence of an individual plant species at a particular place and time. Collections of specimens allow researchers to identify unknown plants, investigate how plants are related to each other, and how plants respond to environmental and biological changes over time. This information is critical in the study of biological diversity and in understanding how climate change, invasive species, and other challenges will affect biodiversity.

In addition to its collections, The Deaver Herbarium houses a small library and is home to helpful staff.  Research staff members also collect plants in northern Arizona, the Colorado Plateau states, and the mountains of the southwestern U.S., Mexico, and South America. 

Historical notes

Started in 1930, the herbarium is named for its first curator, Chester “Danny” Deaver.

Each permanent scientific repository is assigned a unique identifier, which takes the form of an acronym. The Deaver Herbarium’s permanent acronym, ASC, was assigned when NAU was called Arizona State College.

Map and directions

On the campus of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, the Deaver Herbarium is housed in the Science Annex building (Bldg. #20) on South Beaver St just west of the intersection of Beaver Street and Franklin Avenue. This Google map image shows the exact location.

The Deaver Herbarium is on the third floor of the Science Annex. Visit us by entering the Biology building (building 21) at its northern entrance off of Beaver Street. Take the elevator or stairwell to the third floor of the Biology building then enter building 20 and the NAU Biological Collections area through the double doors at the north end of the hallway. Because the collections have limited access, please, email Deaver.Herbarium@nau.edu a few days ahead of your visit so that someone can meet you at the double doors and escort you to the herbarium.