Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge Herbarium (FWNC-FWNC)

At 3,621 acres, the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge is one of the largest city-owned nature centers in the United States. Created in the 1960s with the help of local citizens’ groups, the Center’s development built on earlier efforts to protect the watershed feeding the Lake Worth reservoir in the western portion of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Dora Sylvester, a science educator and naturalist who was a major force in the Center’s creation, understood the importance of herbaria in documenting past and present plant diversity at managed nature preserves, and established the FWNC herbarium. The herbarium started mainly with her own collections from the property and has been supplemented with vouchers from more recent vegetation studies, as well as those made by other volunteers, staff, and students from local universities. The herbarium additionally serves a role in the training of staff and volunteers, and also in the Center’s education programs for adults and school children.