The herbarium did not begin its growth spurt until the arrival of James Ackerman in 1981.  His interest in orchids prompted him to collect that group throughout Puerto Rico and later across the Greater Antilles; his teaching duties in taxonomy spurred his students to do more general collecting.  In 1985 he encouraged Franklin Axelrod to begin collecting plants and that began his long and fruitful association with the herbarium.  Also at that time, Charlotte Taylor, now at the Missouri Botanical Garden, joined the Department of Biology and collected extensively here.  When Charlotte left, Linda Escobar was with us all too briefly and added not only Puerto Rican plants to our collection but also brought some of her Passiflora collection from Colombia.  Due primarily to the efforts of the above collectors and their students, the collection at the Herbarium now contains over 45,000 specimens.