Woman honored for nearly 6 decades of service to the Denver Botanical Garden

DENVER — Behind the doors of the Denver Botanical Garden, away from the beautiful flowers outside, lies a herbarium. There’s a lot of important work being done there.

“We like to document biodiversity across the landscape,” said Jennifer Neale, director of research and conservation at the Denver Botanical Garden. “We have just over 100,000 documented specimens. They are available for study by the general public and researchers.”

The process is not easy. The specimens are carefully dried, frozen, and then gently glued to archival paper. The key point in this process is identification. And many of them are identified by volunteer Loraine Yeatts behind the microscope.

“He has been with us for over 55 years,” Neale said.

“I didn’t know about plants back then,” Yeatts recalled. “But I started seeing all these wonderful flowers in Colorado and decided I had to find out what they were.”

She immediately became a volunteer at the Botanical Garden, helping with the collections and expanding them herself.

“Her first specimens date back to 1972, and she has over 5,500 of them,” Neale said.

Her passion for plants and commitment to protecting them is a gift, which is why we’re proud to call Loraine Yeatts this week’s Denver7 Daily Hero!

“It was my pleasure,” Yeatts said. “I enjoy every minute, especially spent with all the people I worked with.”

Woman honored for nearly 60 years of volunteer work at the Denver Botanical Garden

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