Greetings, once again, loyal readers. Today guest writer Ella Serpell completes her three-part series on herbaria. If you'd like to catch up on the rest of the series, and These articles coincide with the anniversary of the death of Swedish botanist .
If you have read Part 1 and 2 of this post series inspired by the Mütter Herbarium, you may want to try your hand at making your own herbarium sheet. With winter upon us, there may not be bright spring and summer flowers to collect, but maybe it can help you appreciate the plant life that remains during this time. Seek out an evergreen fern, a winter flowering witch-hazel, or some other plant that takes your fancy and see if you can preserve it!
Here is a very brief set of instructions on how to properly collect, dry, prepare, and label plants. These are followed by several links or directions to more in depth resources you can reference.
- Before you pick the plant, make sure it is okay to pick! Don't take anything from national parks, protected areas, or private property without permission.
- Also, before picking it, take notes about the plant that won't be evident in the final specimen. This can include just the date and location it was picked, but it can also include the scientific name and other descriptions such as the size of the whole plant, the substrate it is growing in, the smell, the original color, and much, much more.
- Pick your plant! For a scientific herbarium, you would want to have as many plant parts as possible, collecting flowers, leaves, stems, and maybe even roots of small herbaceous plants.
- Once you pick the specimen, you can put it directly into a notebook you have brought with you, or you can keep it in a bag until you have finished your collecting trip.
- Then, you can place the specimen in between two sheets of paper. You can use newspaper, blotting paper, or even old notebook paper. Depending on how wet, thick, or fleshy the specimen is, you may want to have several sheets of paper and may even want to use cardboard. After you have laid the specimen(s) between papers, you have to press them. If you have a plant press you can use this, or simply place them underneath a pile of books or other heavy objects in a warm dry place. Try to keep your pile balanced enough to create even pressure.
- Then you have to wait! Small thin specimens may only take 24 hours but some can take up to 3 weeks. Feel free to carefully check on your sheets periodically. You can replace the paper to try to draw away more moisture if your specimen is taking a long time.
- When your specimen is finished, you can use a small amount of glue, tape, or even a needle and thread to attach them to a final mounting sheet. Then, you should copy any information that you wrote down at their initial collection so that all the information can be stored together. Make sure to include at least the date of collection, the place it was picked, and the species name if you know it.
Further resources for Herbarium preparation:
Ayers, Elaine. “Quarantine Herbarium: A Record of Nature from Home, Produced during COVID-19,” March 2020. .
“Pressing and Collecting Samples.” How to press plants and make herbarium collections RHS Gardening. The Royal Horticultural Society . Accessed December 3, 2020. https://www.rhs.org.uk/science/conservation-biodiversity/conserving-garden-plants/rhs-herbarium/pressing-and-collecting-samples.
“Making Good Specimens.” Herbarium. Utah State University. Accessed December 3, 2020. https://herbarium.usu.edu/resources/learning_about_plants/making_specimens.
Tucker, Arthur O.; Calabrese, Lou, Williams, Francis R. The Use and Methods of Making a Herbarium/Plant Specimens An Herb Society of America Guide. The Herb Society of America, 2005. Bridson, Diane, and Leonard Forman. The Herbarium Handbook. Third Editioned. Kew: Royal Botanic Gardens, 2013.
Thanks, Ella, for an informative series of articles. Be sure to check back for updates on the Mütter Herbarium project as well as more articles from The Center for Education of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia.