Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

National Museum of Natural History

NMNH-EO_031018_Regal_Murex_Hexaplex_regius_004-000001.jpg

‘Snarge,’ Seashells and Much More This April at the National Museum of Natural History

This spring, the museum is hosting events exploring everything from how our ancestors wielded wooden tools to the work of forensic ornithologists

Two women stand in a field, holding bundles of grasses with a rainbow coloring the sky in the background.

To Bridge Heritage and Science, the Smithsonian’s Inclusive Education Programs Empower Learners Through Culture and Community

Through Indigenous weaving workshops and environmental science projects, the Smithsonian engages in co-learning projects to support culturally responsive education

29299.jpg

Pawpaw-Palooza: The Inside Scoop on North America’s Taste of the Tropics

The strange plant is ingrained in American history and well-represented in the museum’s herbarium and gardens

Yellow and white lichens are pictured against a back background on a tree branch.

Meet the Smithsonian Fellow Alumni Helping to Save the Planet

This Earth Day, learn about early-career researchers who are tackling issues from green technology to lichen biodiversity and coral rehabilitation

A woman in a blue checkered shirt kneels on the ground with tall, green plans surrounding her on both sides.

Late Smithsonian Botanist's Legacy Continues to Blossom

Museum plant specimen belongs to a new genus that honors the pioneering research of longtime curator Vicki Funk

Magnolia_macrophylla_AliceTangerini.jpg

The Smithsonian’s Only Botanical Illustrator Transforms Science Into Stunning Works of Art

Learn how botanical illustrator Alice Tangerini keeps traditional artistic methods alive in the increasingly digital world of science

Multiple pages of paper adorned with brown and yellow pressed plant specimens sit, one after the other, on a dark gray table-like surface. In the background are two people with purple gloves on.

2022 in Review: The National Herbarium Goes Digital

In May, the museum completed a groundbreaking digitization process that brought nearly four million pressed plants online.

Through research on living and preserved plants, botanists are learning more about how flora has responded to climate change over the past centuries. (USDA photo by Preston Keres)

Why Plants are Seeding Climate Studies

The National Museum of Natural History’s herbarium is helping botanists research climate-driven changes in plants, their biology and their abundance

The seeds of common poppy (Papaver rhoeas) only germinate when the soil in which they live is disturbed. Intense fighting during World War I decimated Europe’s physical environment, causing thousands of poppies to bloom where battles once raged. (Gary Houston, CC0 1.0)

100 Years Ago, Poppies Became More Than Just Flowers

Here's how the poppy came to symbolize World War I.

Categories
Archive