School of Pharmacy medicinal garden
This coming spring, we look forward to the first full season of growth for our newly established educational medicinal garden at the University of Kansas School of Pharmacy. This garden, designed by faculty and staff of the Native Medicinal Plant Research Program, was planted in May 2011 by KU faculty, students, staff and volunteers. More than 100 people, including pharmacy students, attended the public event.
Barbara Timmermann (in yellow jacket at left), who heads the medicinal chemistry arm of our program, as well as KU pharmacy students (in blue T-shirts) were on hand for the planting event.
This is not the first medicinal garden at the University of Kansas. In the 1920s, pharmacy students planted the “KU Drug Garden” near old Robinson Gymnasium on the Lawrence main campus. The garden honored their mentor, Lucius E. Sayre, the first dean of pharmacy at the University of Kansas.
The new pharmacy garden, made up of five themed beds, provides information on some 70 species of medicinal plants, many native to Kansas and the Great Plains. An extensive signage system provides information about the historical uses of each individual plant, about each bed and about the garden overall. (See plant list.)
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The role of herbarium specimens in research
As children, many of us pressed flowers because we wanted to preserve their beauty. But the scientific value of pressed plant specimens also has long been respected. These specimens, such as the 6.5 million at the New York Botanical Garden, 14,000 preserved by 18th-century Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, and more than 200 from the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1803-1806 — as well as the 400,000 specimens at the University of Kansas R.L. McGregor Herbarium — continue to be studied. The specimens serve as the basis for hundreds of research projects on subjects such as genetic diversity, geographic distribution, and the evolutionary relationships of species.
Botanist Hillary Loring with specimens of Ceanothus herbaceus (New Jersey tea or redroot).
During field season, botanists Quinn Long, Hilary Loring and Kelly Kindscher spend many weeks collecting plant material for medicinal testing through our program. The research involved before, during and after each collection includes the preparation of one or more preserved specimens of plants. These specimens, held at the McGregor Herbarium, verify and provide evidence that the species named for our chemistry testing are correct.
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