The Southeast US Chapter of the Society of Herbarium Curators (SHC SE-USA) originated out of the SERNEC consortium. SERNEC (SouthEast Regional Network of Expertise and Collections) represents more than 230 herbaria across 14 states in the southeastern USA.

​We originally organized in 2006, and were supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as a Research Coordination Network (RCN). During that time, our primary focus was on the digitization of herbarium specimens from the southeastern USA. Moving forward, our chapter continues to discuss ways in which we can support our large community of curators, collections managers, researchers, students, hobbyists, and other members in their efforts to grow, curate, and manage collections.