The Joseph Rock Herbarium (HAW) was founded around 1910 by Joseph Rock, an Austrian immigrant who eventually found his way to Honolulu. Rock documented much of the Hawaiian flora for Western science and served as the herbarium’s founder and first curator. For twenty years after Rock, Dr. Harold St. John assumed responsibility, growing the collection substantially over the years. Other notable caretakers include Drs. Charles Lamoureux, Cliff Morden, and Tom Ranker. In 2004, HAW assumed the Lyon Arboretum herbarium collection of roughly 9,000 specimens and has smaller holdings from local herbaria. In 2005 the herbarium received NSF funds to support the purchase of a new compacter system, and in 2008 another grant provided funds to start digitizing the holdings and develop the Consortium of Pacific Herbaria search portal. The current Director, Dr. Karolina Heyduk, started in January 2020.