Bill's Botanical Forays

INTRODUCTION

This time I would like to introduced what is a herbarium and a little bit about plant collecting in pictures.

WHAT IS A HERBARIUM

A herbarium is a collection of preserved plant specimens. The specimens are usually pressed and dried plants or plant parts mounted on sheets that serve as a record or a reference for the occurrence of plant species. They are stored in cabinets and cataloged according to a convenient system. Herbariums range in size from one or two cabinets with a few thousand specimens like the one here on the Refuge, to ones with several million specimens like the National Herbarium at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.

 

PURPOSE OF A HERBARIUM

The collections housed in herbaria are primarily used for scientific research. Research that might commonly take place in a herbarium includes:

1. Mapping current and past ecological and geographic distribution of plants;
2. Evolutionary history of plants;
3. Existing and changing nature of plant communities and their habitats;
4. Invasion biology and weed ecology;
5. Molecular phylogenetics; and
6. Classification and naming of plants.

 

ABOUT THE REFUGE HERBARIUM

The refuge herbarium was established in the late 1930’s by Neil Hotchkiss. Hotchkiss and others including Fran Uhler, Robert Stewart, and William Stickler added specimens to the collection through the 1970’s.  The plants were collected from what is now the South and Central Tracts. The current project of collecting plants from the North Tract began in 2010.  So far, the total number of plants specimens collected is well over 3,000 and the total count of plant species on the refuge is over 1,200 as of March 2013.