Refreshing our Herbarium

Spring brings opportunity for awakening, beginning anew, and transformation. During this season, my passion for the plant world reaches nearly an obsessive level. Even when drawn indoors--away from the forests filled with tiny insects floating through beams of sunlight that land on blooms in shades of white, yellow, and pink underfoot--I still think of plants. 

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) blooms peek
out from their tightly-held leaves.

A pile of unattended projects waits for me in an artificially-lit work space. I don't often mind the view--construction tools and supplies for the care of our live collections hold little interest over the various natural objects I have in queue. Having just jumped into spring with two new exhibit projects, I'm only now attending to these jars of animals, a mount of a fish, and folders containing pressed plants. 

I've had little experience in the realm of preparing specimens for a museum's herbarium, so decided to tackle that first. Like many of our new specimens, most of the objects on my work table were donated; unlike the typical donation, there are a few pressed plants. While roughly a quarter of the Museum's objects in the collection are plants, they are actually not popular deposits. In fact, the large majority of our herbarium specimens had been collected by one intrepid woman in the mid-1970's. Since then we've had little development in that department.

This Aster was properly pressed for preparation as a
Museum specimen.

 ...Until now. Although the plants are not yet ready for admittance into our collection, perhaps the most significant task has already been completed: someone has explored the natural world and encountered these plants. An impassioned volunteer, having recognized yet another opportunity to support the Museum, gifted me some of her finds months back. With asters, watercress, and other plants carefully pressed and dried, I prepare them to serve as documentation of our area's biological diversity.

Mounting materials include PVA glue, gummed linen tape, and acid-free paper.

Being my first endeavor, I've actually found this process to be quite simple. A multitude of accessible resources provide me with information regarding which materials to use (like the University of Florida Herbarium) and how to best apply these supplies for preserving the specimen. With my work space cleared of other projects for the time being, I've filled out labels and adhered them to acid-free sheets of paper. Now I devote my attention to adhering delicate plant materials to those sheets. 

A first! This watercress was collected by a volunteer
and became the first herbarium specimen I prepared for
the Museum's collection.

These specimens which I'm preparing should retain their vibrant colors, detailed data, and value for many years into the future. I know that soon the clock will require me to move on to the next project on my list, but now I have the comfort of knowing that new plants may start arriving after many years of stagnancy in the herbarium. As long as our collection keeps growing with new deposits, I anticipate I'll feel the rejuvenating spirit of spring at any time throughout the year.