Hunt Institute specializes in the history of botany and all aspects of plant science and serves the international scientific community through research and documentation. To this end, the Institute acquires and maintains authoritative collections of books, plant images, manuscripts, portraits and data files, and provides publications and other modes of information service. The Institute meets the reference needs of botanists, biologists, historians, conservationists, librarians, bibliographers and the public at large, especially those concerned with any aspect of the North American flora. Learn more
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Bernard Lowy (1916–1992) papers
This collection includes correspondence, scientific articles, lecture notes and miscellaneous documents. Lowy's correspondence with R. Gordon Wasson (1898–1986) is one of the many highlights.
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John Ellis, Directions (1770)
The Library has digitized John Ellis (?1710–1776), Directions for Bringing over Seeds and Plants, from the East Indies and Other Distant Countries, in a State of Vegetation: Together with a Catalogue of Such Foreign Plants as Are Worthy of Being Encouraged in Our American Colonies, for the Purposes of Medicine, Agriculture, and Commerce. To Which is Added, the Figure and Botanical Description of a New Sensitive Plant, Called Dionaea muscipula: or, Venus's Fly-trap (London, printed and sold by L. Davis, 1770).
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To Make a Prairie: Pollination and Human Understanding
17 March–30 June 2026Building on the words of Emily Dickinson, "To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee," our spring exhibition explores how humanity came to understand one of nature's most essential relationships: the intricate partnership between plants and their pollinators.
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