Herbaria represent a vast and often untapped wealth of information. Data from herbarium specimens and their associated labels have provided invaluable information for the fields of ecology and systematics. For example, locality and phenological data from labels have allowed the assessment of changes to species distributions over time due to climate change. Also, sampling leaf material from herbarium specimens for DNA extraction is the backbone of plant systematics. Novel methodologies and emergent technologies and analyses to obtain additional data from herbarium specimens are opening new avenues of research. The growing field of environmental DNA (eDNA) has emerged as a promising method for facilitating the assessment of biodiversity. By incorporating eDNA with a metabarcoding analysis it is possible to identify whole communities from a single sample. Here, we explored eDNA analysis to further expand the use of herbarium specimens to assess plant-organismal interactions and contribute to the extended specimen network. As a proof-of-concept, we swabbed carnivorous plants, in particular from the genera Pinguicula and Drosera. No detectable damage was done to any of the specimens that were sampled.  We successfully detected plant, insect, and microbial eDNA though the vast majority of the detected taxa were from other plants. These plant taxa included a wide variety of plant species from both natural/historical sources and contamination within the herbarium. While contamination must be accounted for, it was clear that eDNA from herbarium specimens can effectively characterize historical plant communities. As this method advances, herbarium specimens of non-carnivorous plants should also be sampled. It is possible that due to powerful enzymes released by carnivorous plants, insects and microbes were too degraded, or their DNA too fragmented to be detected. We believe that eDNA sampling of herbarium specimens is a promising tool to explore changes in plant communities, plant-insect interactions, and microbial communities across time and space.