The dry, mothball-scented stacks of a herbarium might seem to be far away from the cutting edge of plant science. However, the curated plant specimens stored there contain irreplaceable genetic, morphological, ecological, and chemical information just waiting to be analyzed with modern techniques. In a new study in a recent issue of Applications in Plant Sciences, Dr. Maria Kuzmina at the University of Guelph and colleagues tapped this trove of information, showing that herbarium specimens can yield viable DNA barcode libraries.