Botanical Garden adds 6 millionth dried plant

ST. LOUIS -- The Missouri Botanical Garden doesn't just have beautiful gardens, it has one of the world's largest collections of dried plants to help researchers better understand the natural world.

The garden added its 6 millionth plant specimen to that collection Friday. It's a member of the Philodendron family, collected by Thomas Croat during a trip to Ecuador last year.

The garden's herbarium has been described as a plant library. It contains pages of mounted plant specimens from all over the world, with information including who identified them and the geographic coordinates for where they were found.

The specimens, their pollen and seedlings can be studied. Researchers can determine how a plant's anatomy changed over time, what the whole plant looks like and where it grows.