February 9, 2016

Herbarium Techniques
What are Herbaria?
Collecting Specimen
Mounting Specimen
Storing Specimen & Curation
Pest Management
Loans & Exchange
Global Plants Initiative
Other resources
An herbarium is an expanding collection of dried
plants that are stored in cabinets, curated, and
made accessible to the public
Uses

of the herbarium
Store reference material
Aid in identifying unnamed plants
Aid in correctly naming plants
A comprehensive data-blank

General or International Herbaria

Often large and old (4 million+)
Usually have many botanical type
specimens and global representation of taxa
Produce broad-scale studies of families or
orders
Produce major floristic works at a national or
regional level

Services include botanists, identifying

specimen, major collecting projects &
distributing duplicates

National or regional herbaria

Geographic specialties in native country or
regional area
Type material usually well-represented
Contribute to major floristic projects at
national and regional level
Help produce local or regional checklists
Services like this for general herbaria plus
provide fresh material for ancillary
disciplines like cytology, chemistry, etc
Examples: CAS/DS, UC, MICH, RSA
Local Herbaria
A region within a state/county or a park or
nature reserve
Contain a few if any type specimen
Usually only local taxa represented
Contributes to national flora
Produces local floras and checklists
Services include specimen identification,
fish collecting and distribution of duplicates
Examples: Chico State, Humboldt, SBBG
Special herbaria
Historical: maintained separately from main
of collection (example: Lewis % Clarke
Herbarium Philadelphia)

Limited scope: taxonomically or ecologically

(example: bryophytes only or U.S. Forest
Service collection)
Teaching: normally housed in universities
and colleges (these are used to illustrate
morphology or local communities)
Job related (example: US Department of
Agriculture weeds)
Botanic gardens (for cultivars)
Specialized Research (such as vouchers for
chemical or cytological studies)

Herbarium collaborations
Important to evaluate strengths, goals,
expertise
Collaborate with other herbaria

Specimen Label
-info about plant:
Who, where (Country, Island province,
city/town, barangay, elevation, etc.) when
-Other info: height, color, smell, taste
-Information added to the specimen after it was
collected
Basic considerations
Who, what, why, where, when
-How the material will be used and
-How to make the material most useful
-What is needed to collect:

Permits, Team, Equipment

Collecting specimens
-Collect fertile specimens (fruiting, flowering,
mature spores)
-For ferns, collect both fertile and sterile fronds
Collection tags
-Tags on specimens include collectors initials
&number
-Tags may give other info (fruit separate, order of
parts of multi-sheet specimens, etc)
-Tag remains with the specimen in the herbarium
What to collect
-Cut woody subjects to demonstrate the branching
pattern
-Try to preserve the stem apex
-show both aspects of leaf and flower
-the specimen should fit the sheet. Not too much,
not too little
Other considerations
-Use padding layers next to bulky items so leaves
dry flat
-Collect what will fit on a sheet (beware of topsnatching and overloading)
- Be prepared with press, tags, pencil,
newspapers, drying paper, waxed paper,
ventilators, whatever will help make a good
specimen
Drying specimens
-Schweinfurth (wet alcohol) collecting

Keep prepared material dry

-Aluminium corrugates, cardboard corrugates,
straps, warm air heat source (35-45 degC)
-Air flow, heat, (block excess flow), tighten,
straighten, etc. 18 hrs-4days (examine twice per
day)
-be sure your specimens can be adequately cared
for until and after return (drying, alcohol, etc.)
-Label DNA samples carefully to match voucher
specimen
Special considerations
-conifers (may drop leaflets)
-Cacti (fleshy and may revitalize also
Loranthaceae)
-Large fruits (some that disintegrate, others that
are fleshy and dry slowly)
-Wind-borne seeds (Asclepiadaceae, others)
Labels
Basics:
Colectors names, nmber, date
Locality
Habitat

Plant description
-Height of tree/shrub or extent of liana, dbh if
appropriate
-color of flower, fruit
-presence/color/odor
-Soil type, slope, geology
-associated species
-sun/shade
-location seasonally
Schweinfurth method (alcohol)
Microwave ovens