Lush green lawns, majestic trees, and artfully designed flower gardens may be the first thing visitors notice when they arrive at NYBG, but as a botanical garden, our mission goes well beyond the creation of a beautiful landscape. For 125 years, NYBG has served as a cultural and educational institution where anyone can learn about horticulture and botany.
One way that we carry out this part of our mission is through the documentation, tracking, and labeling of plants. Just as visitors to an art museum learn to tell a Titian from a Twombly by reading display labels next to each work, botanical garden-goers learn to differentiate a tulip from a trillium by looking at plant labels. This is done by the Garden’s Plant Records department.
Display labels include the plant’s common name, botanical name (genus and specific epithet), family, and native range or cultivar name, a name chosen by the person who selectively cultivated the plant. Some labels also include a plant’s unique accession number, linking it to the database record.
The style of NYBG’s display labels has changed over the years, with the earliest labels being made from cast iron, or hand-painted on wooden blocks, or hand-painted zinc markers. Today, our display labels are laser-engraved on brown plastic, though other colors have also been used over the years. The label’s size depends on the type and size of the plant. These labels are either attached to an aluminum stake and placed in front of herbaceous plants or shrubs, or in the case of large trees, they’re attached to a wooden block and mounted on the tree trunk. The NYBG Plant Records department produces an average of 1,500 new display labels a year. The acrylic is made from 40-45% pre-consumer recycled content.
You may have noticed these brown plastic display labels throughout the gardens. This style of label is currently used today and they include the common and scientific names of the plant species. The first line displays the common name, a nickname which may vary from region to region. Next is the universally accepted scientific name, also known as the botanical name. Then, the plant family is shown in all caps, unless the plant is a cultivar, in which case the cultivar name appears within single quotation marks. If the plant is a naturally occurring species, the native range appears on the next line. Lastly, labels for woody plants (trees and shrubs) also include the accession number, a unique number that links to its database record.
What’s that Plant? Display Case in the Mertz Library
Information on Display Labels
[Art Department Studio, Stone Mill]
New York Botanical Garden Historical Photograph Album, Mertz Library (1942).
This photograph shows a Garden employee hand-painting interpretative signage and plant labels.
Library
libref@nybg.org
(718)-817-8827
Archives
archives@nybg.org
Plant Information
plantinfo@nybg.org
