The splendid collections of teosinte and maize, the wild and cultivated members of Zea, merit special mention. The one and only authoritative taxonomic treatment (1980) of this, the world's third most important genus of food plants, was, in fact, authored by staff and students of the UW Herbarium. Furthermore, the joint University of Wisconsin-Universidad de Guadalajara teosinte expedition of 1978 to the state of Jalisco, Mexico, culminated in the sensational discovery of the primitive Z. diploperennis in the Sierra de Manantlán, which in turn led to the establishment of the 340,000-acre (141,000 ha) Sierra de Manantlán Biosphere Reserve. From 1978 to this day, cooperating botanists from the UW Herbarium and the Universidad de Guadalajara's Instituto Manantlán de Ecología have made there almost 30,000 numbered herbarium collections, which form the basis for the "Flora de Manantlán. Plantas Vasculares de la Reserva de la Blosfera Sierra de Manantlán, Jalisco-Colima, México," a bilingual book, published 'in 1995, that is the most authoritative floristic list of its kind in the world.

This book is available for purchase through the Herbarium by contacting T.S. Cochrane, tscochra@facstaff.wisc.edu