Edinburgh, Royal Botanic Garden. "Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh - What is a herbarium". www.rbge.org.uk . Retrieved 2016-03-25. Along with breathtaking imprints, maps, photographs and illustrations, Barbara Thiers details the history of herbaria and their many roles in the world from 1500 to the present. As a master gardener and forager thirsting to learn more, this title hooked me immediately. I take my Hats off to all those Brave ,some times Fool Hardy explorers who charted unknown waters sometimes as the case with Dampier a very poor Vessel in which to make those Journey's in cramped conditions for both the men who sailed on the vessel & the "specimens they were carrying. I really enjoyed reading this book. I'll admit it was a bit dry in places, but that's hard to avoid given the subject matter. What I enjoyed most were the stories tied to these famous herbaria, especially that of Jeanne Baret (who disguised herself as a man to join an expedition around the world) and Constantine Rafinesque (who was so prolific yet slapdash in his work that he actually negatively impacted the field). You'd be surprised by the drama and personalities involved.

Readers interested in the history of botany, herbaria, life science taxonomy, and digitization processes will find this book fascinating in understanding how collecting plants reveals our past, present, and future.”—Raymond Pun, American Archivist Thanks to NetGalley, Timber Press, and the author, Dr. Thiers, for the opportunity to read a digital copy in exchange for this review. Herbarium is a pretty much what you'd expect from the cover: a book all about herbaria, collections of preserved plants. The book is -beautifully- illustrated throughout with mounted specimens shown in situ with their accession entries. It's very much like a museum trip in the reader's hands as well as abundant drawings and illustrations. I work in a healthcare setting in a laboratory (cancer biopsies mostly), but seeing the photographs of their labs with climate controlled storage and rooms full of files of plant material made my bionerd-y heart sing.Elspeth Haston] In this building is 4,000 grey cabinets. But to me, those cabinets, you open the doors and you've got every single biome in there, you've got every single environment, you've got, whether it's tropical rain forests, whether it's alpine in Scotland or whether it's the Himalaya or the Savannah, we've got everything in those cabinets. So it's a tremendous place to work, to know that all of that environment is just here.

Wood collection (xylarium)". www.kew.org. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Archived from the original on 17 July 2016 . Retrieved 2 February 2016. The Herbarium is a collection of dried plant specimens that are stored, catalogued, and arranged by family, genus and species for study. A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant specimens and associated data used for scientific study. [2] Collecting: Select a typical plant and if possible two or three extra flowers to supplement the specimen and for dissection. Ensure the plant is healthy and collect average-sized leaves and flowers typical of the plant, not the biggest. Remove soil from the material. Photograph the plant habit and a close-up. Avoid collecting material in wet weather.With over seven million specimens, Kew’s Herbarium collection is one of the largest in the world. It is an unrivalled evidence base that underpins our scientific research. Integral to the project are the activities that involve student participation, which forms about 90% of the workforce. The project has provided training in the form of internships for four undergraduate students from colleges and universities in Southern California. Additionally, through coordinated efforts with faculty at California Polytechnic University, Pomona (CPP), undergraduates have been barcoding specimens as a first step of the digitization process. Since the project started, more than 80 students have barcoded over12,000 specimens. More information about the Capturing California Flowers Project can be found here: https://www.capturingcaliforniasflowers.org The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sheet of paper (called exsiccatum, plur. exsiccata) but, depending upon the material, may also be stored in boxes or kept in alcohol or other preservative. [3] The specimens in a herbarium are often used as reference material in describing plant taxa; some specimens may be types.

Modern herbaria often maintain electronic databases of their collections. Many herbaria have initiatives to digitize specimens to produce a virtual herbarium. These records and images are made publicly accessible via the Internet when possible. Collections of preserved plant specimens, known as herbaria, have existed for nearly five centuries. These pressed and labeled plants have been essential resources for scientists, allowing them to describe and differentiate species and to document and research plant changes and biodiversity over time—including changes related to climate. International trade has always been important but from 1500 on interest in adding new plant and species and spices developed and grew. Transportation on ships made this possible, especially with the invention of Wardian cases which preserved specimens. Plants we now take for granted & the sometimes Life saving medicines they provide us with ,were hard come by over the years by these intrepid people .Each specimen is an immense source of information that can tell us what plants look like; where they are found; what environmental niche they occupy; which species are threatened with extinction; what morphological and chemical variation occurs; and, when they flower or produce seed.