Herbarium, Uses , Functions & Importance.pdf

A brief ppt on Herbaria, Uses, metods and functions.

2. The “Herbarium” has two meanings; one is a repository or storehouse of plant
specimens which are collected, dried and mounted on paper sheets.
Second is, A plant specimen which is preserved according to accepted
international standards.
Non-vascular plant specimens (algae, fungi, lichens, bryophytes and certain
pteridophyptes) can be fixed in FAA (Pickled) and brought to the herbarium
for identification and numbering.
They will be arranged in a recognized system of classification and kept in steel or wooden cupboards and maintained carefully for current and future studies.
It is used as reference material for naming, identification and classification of plants.
What is a Herbarium?

3. With the advent of Information Technology, new
techniques are adopted now for herbaria, include the
micro-herbaria in the form of photographs & the
electronic herbaria in the form of digitized databases.
The herbarium also keeps voucher materials such
as seeds, wood sections, pollen, micro slides,
fluid preserved flowers, fruits etc. Herbaria keep
all categories of plants specified by International
Code of Nomenclature of algae, fungi and plants

5. It is believed that the first Herbarium was established in 1570 in Bologna,
Italy, by Luca Ghini.
According to the data in Index Herbariorum as of 1 December
2018, there are 3095 active herbaria in the world, containing
387,513,053 specimens. There are 178 countries with at least
one herbarium.
In India, the IH states that there are 88
recognised Herbaria having 5,363,459 specimens.
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle P France 8,000,000
The New York Botanical Garden NY USA 7,800,000
Royal Botanic Gardens K U.K 7,000,000
Botanical Survey of India CAL India 2,000,000 (1793)
Name Notation Country Number

6. A plant collecting kit tools
Clippers to cut plants (Secateurs ), sharp Knives, Blades
Digger to dig plants
Vasculum, Plastic and Paper bags to put your plants in until you can press them
a Field notebook with your name on it, Small tags to attach to the plant specimen
a Pencil
a Map of the area (a GPS unit is a helpful addition)
Plant press
SECATEUR

7. Preparation of
herbarium
specimens:
Collection:
Poisoning and
drying :
Mounting &
labelling:

8. The specimen material (plants) which you are interested in should be collected
as whole (if they are herbs) or part of plant along with flowers and
fruits/carpels.
Collection:

9. Before putting your specimens in the Vasculum / collection bag you
should carefully remove all the insects, spider-webs and foreign
bodies attached to your specimens.
Vasculum is a metal container, with a carrying strap. It is airtight
and hence specimens collected from the field can be kept in it without
drying till the end of the day.

10. The half-size of the regular newspaper can also be used for
placing the specimens.
The mounted specimens are placed in between wooden-
frames and tied securely.
It shouldn’t be too tight or too loose. It it is too tight there will not be adequate air circulation between the sheets
leading to fungal attack.
If it is too loose all parts of the specimen will not dry
evenly.

12. Then the specimen is mounted in 42 cm x 29 cm (16 ½” x 11 ½”) size blotting paper.
If the plant specimen is larger than the blotting paper it can mounted in
V or N or
M shape to accommodate the entire plant material in dorsiventral position.

14. PLANT PRESS (Field Press)

15. A well-designed field notebook has numbered sheets in printed
form with standard pro-forma for entering field data. A field note book
has serially
numbered sheets (called field numbers) to be suffixed to the collector’s
name.
Field Number

16. Poisoning the specimen:
Poisoning kills the plants and prevents the formation of abscission layer and
thereby the leaves, flowers and fruits will be intact with the specimen (twig)
will not be getting detached from the plant. The solution can also be applied to
mounted specimens by spraying.
The poisoning is generally done by dipping the whole plant in a
saturated solution of mercuric chloride in ethyl alcohol (usually 20
gm in a litre of alcohol).
Cacti, succulent and tuberous/bulbous should be poisoned longer to
completely kill the specimens.
Softening of the cactus by the immersion in boiling water for half a minute,
taking care of avoiding the immersion of the flowers, can yield better
specimens.
Instead of boiling, dilute acetic acid or strong alcohol or formalin (1.5 parts formalin, 1 part water) can be used. Tubers or bulbs must be treated before
drying.

17. Poisoning the specimen:

18. Drying:
Natural drying of specimens is a slow process, which may take up to one
month for complete drying. The plants, freshly collected, are placed in a
press without corrugated sheets and the press is locked for 24hours.
During this period, plants lose some moisture, become flaccid and can be
easily rearranged. The folded sheet containing the specimen is lifted and
placed in a fresh dry folded blotter.
If Newspapers are used they should be changed every day, increasing the
interval between the changes successively until the specimens are fully
dry.
The whole process of drying may take about 10 days to one month,
depending on the specimens and the climate of the area.

19. The press is kept in a drier, a cabinet in which electric bulb
warms the air, drying the specimens by movement
through the press.
Use of a hot air blower in the cabinet speeds up circulation of the hot air and, consequently, is achieved.
The rapid drying of specimens using artificial heat has, however, inherent limitations of rendering plants brittle,
loss of flower colour and some colour change in leaves.
Drying using Artificial Heat

20. The dried plant specimens are now ready
for mounting on herbarium sheets. Fixing
the processed plant specimen on
herbarium sheet is called mounting.
Mounting & Labelling
Standard herbarium sheet is 28 cm (breadth) x 42
cm (length) and usually made up of heavy long-
lasting white handmade paper or thick sheet.
The common technique is pasting specimens to sheet
with natural glue (usually Gum Arabic). Small quantity
of copper sulphate or thymol crystals or may be added to
the glue as insect repellent.

21. Herbarium specimen sheet pasted with a
label usually at the right side bottom
corner.
Mounting & Labelling
A paper bag/pouch is attachedto the herbarium
sheet to keep any seed/fragments detached from the
specimens.
The herbarium sheet is then deposited in the one of
the indexed herbaria for the plant identification as
well as to acquire a “Voucher Specimen” number.

22. Mounting & Labelling

23. Mounting & Labelling
Paper strips, sewing
thread etc, can be used
to additionally secure
the Plant to the sheet.
Paper Bag
Paper Strip
Label
Voucher Number

24. INDEX HERBARIORUM
IH is a detailed directory of public herbaria of the world and the staff and
plant specialists associated with them.
They are authorized to identifying the plant and provide “Voucher Specimen Number”.
Each herbarium in the Index is assigned an official code that is used as a standard reference for citation. It consists of the herbarium code, institution, city, state, staff member, correspondent, and research specialty.
The data is maintained and available at New York Botanical Garden Herbarium.